What they said to the lobbyers

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while Foot charged at the lobby and was almost knocked over by photographers.

Atkinson, on being asked if he was a member of the NEC, told Heslin that if he didn't recognise him he shouldn't be there.

Abuse The sharpest clash came with Kitson who hurle:! abuse at the lobby, refusing io say which voted in favour of expulsion wav he wanld vote The had THEN TIEN on the organisation committee):

"You're not telling me which way to vote" he snarled. "Take it up through the union"

Joan -Maynard said she would vote against the expuleinn iand Fimlin Williame alen pledged himself against the • witch-hunt.

Bein contented himself with telling Heslin he had read his letter, and passed through.

Une party worker was indig. nant at the thought. that she could be mistaken for an NEC Kitson member. "I told you, you shouldn't have worn that hat" said her colleague as they climbed the stairs.

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Thozamile Botha (right foreground) with Ford workers during mass meet "out- : very often on transport issue-it was thronch that policy of rationalising black and high prices, focussing In the coming period, the underlying combativity of an undefeated South African black working class, facing daily attacks on its already pitiful living standards, stands set to burst through the postSoweto lull.

The stage is being set for the further development of struggle, in which the unresolved political stalemate following Soweto will be opened up and fought out.

The perspective of a reemerging movement of mass struggle in South Africa opens up new possibilities for, and • deepens the urgency of, the building of a revolutionary leadership in the proletariat.

Spontaneous

Soweto was essentially a spontaneous: mass movement in which workers in struggle forged a fighting unity and level of political independence which decisively outflanked the reformist straight jacket of their petty bourgeois nationalist and Stalinist leaders.

But the working class was unable to spontaneously build the political organisations and perspective through which to defend and extend those political gains.

Neither was black was consciousness able to offer workers such way forward.

It was under these circumstances that the leadership of the Soweto movement was appropriated by the clique of black professionals and capitalists known as the 'Soweto 10'.

The erosion of the working class independence and unity that had been built in struggle was exploited by the state to launch a repressive assault on the black consciousness organisations. But this was in no way carried through to a defeat of the working class.

* Stalemate In this situation of political stalemate, with the working class lacking the leadership and programme to move forward towards victory, and the state unable to secure a defeat, reformists were given optimum scope.

Zig-zagging between their capitalist masters and their proletarian supporters, they were able to promote petty bourgeois interests while consolidating their position in the working class..

Combining vicious state repression with a strictly controlled programme of limited reforms aimed at coopting sections of the black petty bourgeoisie and a layer of skilled black workers, the ruling class has sought toexploit the crisis of leadership facing workers.

Fearing above all else the unleashing of the combativity of an undefeated working class, the śtate has been forced to temper the full use of its repressive might against specific struggles. '- Increasingly, the liberals and their black petty bourgeois underlings have. come to the fore as key agents in state efforts to render the working class vulnerable to a decisive blow.

Significance

As the working class now stands poised to move into open struggle once more, specific, apparently localised struggles may assume a crucial national significance.

The process of re-emergence of mass struggle is marked by the fact that struggles may rapidly generalise and escalate from an initial focus, drawing broader layers of workers into action around an extending range of demands and issues.

The struggle at present unfolding in the Port Elizabeth area illustrates this process.

The uneven and combined nature of capitalist development in South Africa has produced the apartheid capitalist state-characterised by developed capitalist relations of production, together with the denial of even minimal bourgeois democratic rights to the mass of the working class, the black workers:

Wide range Subject to the attacks of a •particularly repressive capitalist state in crisis, black workers may come out in struggle on a wide range of immediate issues.

Essentially, however,. ment arising nnliarr such spontaneous struggles are the struggles of workers in an industrialised capitalist Beneath the immediate issue which provokes an eruption, there are always demands relating to the day-to-day material needs of workers-jobs, housing, wages, prices, control over decisions affecting their daily lives.

In the Port Elizabeth area, as in all areas of the country, workers have been made the target of governVAsY HON OUTrAL resettlement plansfrom the Bantustan labour dormitories "outside" "white South Africa". Facing removal from Walmer-a black ohetto inst VL outside Port Elizabeth, to an area over 50 km away, workers have turned to a black consciousness community organisation, PEBCO, as a vehicle for Demolition :

The immediate issue has been the threatened demolition of Walmer-underlving grievances have been around unemployment, low wages nainan frannien ition, but fearful of provoking a mass response, the state was unable to simply launch a repressive attack on PEBCO.

Its leader, Thozamile Botha was, however, given an, ultimatum by his employers-Ford Motors-to stop his political agitation. When he refused, he was dismissed:

News of his dismissal was followed by immediate strike action by about 700° workers, demanding his reinstatement.

Given the real threat of repression and the massive dangers facing any black striker in South Africa, such a show of solidarity was clearly indicative of a major build-up of combativity.

This was to grow and develop politically as more and more grievances and demands came to the fore. Such developments were set to bring workers up against the political failures of their own union and PEBCO leaderships.

Strike committee

With the extension of demands and the building of a strike committee, the around which broader layers of workers would move into open struggle.

At the same time, the strikers were able to draw strength from the militant mass mood OI the area.

Throughout independent control of the committee was very often on transport costs.

Seeking … to steer the develnnino mnnd of annneworkers In the strike workers negotiating a crucial turu wurnoro uurtg muda meby issue-it was . through, the breaking of that control that the strength of the strike was undermined. y Very early in the struggle: workers had come into conflict with their union leadership on this issue.

About half: of the striking workers i are members of the : United Auto Workers Union, an • unregistered black trade union, affiliated to the new Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU).

Far from members

Ford have given negotiating recognition to that union, and immediately turned to it when the initial strike broke out.

Fred Sauls, the central FOSATU leader involved revealed how far it is from the combative mood of the workers:

"We knew nothing about the strike until it happened. But at least half of the strikers were union members and we obviously had to help achieve a settlement."

After the intervention of the union, the workers were all reinstated, four days after coming out.

The union, however, continued to show no recognition of, or way forward in the struggle around underlying grievances which were beginning to surface.

"By negotiating," said Sauls, "Ford shows that it is an enlightened company which handles labour issues with a great deal of goodwill"

Unlike their unions leaders, Ford workers were clearly not satisfied with such "enlightenment and

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'RESS, dnesd LS ig in New Brighton township ¡goodwill Increasingly aware of their strength and drawing support from the general community militancy búilding up around the Walmer removals, workers followed their: re-instatement with new demands. They walked out on three more occasions finally forcing plant closure.

A growing suspicion and hostility was directed at a union leadership which seemed to be putting its special: relationship with management before any struggle around workers grievances.

Ignoring the persistent appeals of employers and the union to leave negotiations up to, them, the strikers demanded that tneir 1111. strike committee be in control of direct negotiations with employers. : The attitude of the union leadership moved' from initial surprise at the strikes to a barely concealed hostility to the strikers and their refusal to hand over all neantiatione to union TTD: leaders.

The "enlightenment and goodwill" of Ford were a littlel thin, and all the strikers were dismissed. In a splendid display of unity, workers rejected the Ford offer of individual reemployment and demanded "reinstatement en clac.

In such situations of developing conflict, workers inevitably turn to those organisations and leaderships in: which they see avenues for pursuing their : PEBCO presented itself in precisely such a way. Basing themselves on the South African state forces growing Walmer opposition movement, combining militant rhetoric with opportunist criticisms of union reformism, black consciousness ideologues inside PEBCO won from the strikers a trust which they had been refusing to place in the union leadership.

This was further cemented by the general move towards PEBCO through the area, as it came to take up the day-to-day issues affecting workers-in the workplace and community.

The strike committee affiliated to PEBCO. Increasingly, the control by the strikers over negotiations came to be eroded.

Undermine

The PEBCO leadership began to do what neither political * repression nor union reformism had achieved-undermine the level of political and organisational independence forged by the striking workers.

PEBCO appropriated control over negotiations, drawing in reformist reinforcements from the South African Council of Churches, the Soweto 10, and even the US consul.

A process which threatened the strength of the strike had been set in motion.

Meanwhile however the real basis of that strengththe determination and combativity of strikers and workers in the area-was reflected in growing levels of militancy and mobilisation.

A meeting of 3,000 workers held by PEBCO unanimously resolved to call a one-day general strike in Port Elizabeth--to protest against the removals and in support of the Ford workers. Plans were also approved for a week-long consumer boycott of all "white businesses"

Working class support for a consumer boycott was clearly the expression of an overwhelming solidarity and resolve to fight-at the same time, it posed a potential diversionary danger to the levels of working class mobilisation developing.

Abstention

As the example of the recent Monis. and Fathis dispute in South Africa indicates, a consumer boycott can easily be reduced to abstention by the working class, orchestrated by the petty bourgeoisie. • The boycott of M&F, launched in solidarity with victimised workers demanding reinstatement was eagerly adopted by black workers seeking to aid the strikers.

But it was equally eagerly appropriated by black businessmen who used it to foster their credentials as the illusion that workers' interests could be served by black capitalists.

The boycott became little more than the refusal of some black businessmen to deal with M&F.

Although the experience of workers at the hands of the apartheid capitalist state breeds a racial identity and solidarity, the race of the capitalist makes no difference to the fact of exploitation.

In the event, the M&l strike was partially wonconditional upon workers not fighting for wage claims for a year.

Faced with the escalation of struggle and the threatening political developments generated by a broader and broader mobilisation, the state stepped up its efforts to isolate, contain and defuse the situation:

Pattern In so doing, in a pattern which will be repeated in struggles throughout South Africa in the coming period, it turned to increased repression 1 • only alter reformist leaders had eroded the level of political independence and organisation forged by workers.

Ford, no doubt in consultation with other employers and the government, backed down and agreed to reinstate all strikers with no loss of benefits.

The inroads which PEBCO and its reformist cohorts had • made on control of the strike now became crucial.

Despite the that fact reinstatement left unchanged the employment conditions which had generated basic grievances in the first place, workers were urged by PEBCO negotiators to accept re-instatement.

• A matter of a few hours after PEBCO leader Botha had convinced Ford workèrs to return, he was arrested by Security Police.

Demanded release

As news of the arrest spread, hundreds of workers congregated, reattirmed the strike call for the following Monday and demanded his immediate release.

For the first time, police moved in in force, using teargas to disperse meetings.

Pushed forward by a growing tide of militancy to which it could give no political perspective and leadership which met the workers' interests, the PEBCO executive used this developing situation of struggle to signal a total retreat.

Having first been instrumental in ending i a strike which had served as a focal point, they now acted to contain the general mobilisation which had been developing with it.

Even as workers were meeting to endorse the planned one day general strike, and to demand the release of Botha, the PEBCO Executive issued a statement which: called on Ford workers to abide by the settlement and end their strike; called off the planned consumer boycott; and called off the general protest strike.

There can be no doubt that this apparent aboutturn by PEBCO at the first signs of developing confrontation will have sown a level of political confusion amongst workers in the area.

Indications are that the calls made in the executive statement have been heeded.

At the same time, however, there can be no doubt that mobilisation is set to grow.

For in Port Elizabeth as in all parts of the country, underlying grievances growing. Strike action, at present relatively isolated and usually for limited periods, is bound to develop.

Thousands of workers have been involved in action against bus price increases in Natal-in a mobilisation which has been contained, for the meanwhile, only by the increasing intervention of Buthelezi's Inkatha.

In Soweto, proposed rent increases have not been implemented. Bus price increases, planned: for Soweto and the Witwatersand in the near future are likely to compound growing combativity and opposTHE TRANSITIONAL PROGRAMME IN TODAY'S CLASS Founding document of the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee Published in the nternational Discussior Bulletin No. 1.

Available, price 75p including postage from WSL, 31 Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR ition.

The stage is being set in South Africa for a crucial phase of struggle in which the political stalemate underlying the post-Soweto lull will be opened up and conflict fought out. As they move into that phase, workers stand threatened, not merely by the repres sive state appatatus, but above all, by the political bankruptcy of their own leaders.

Turning to black consciousness groups, trade unions, Inkatha, community organisations, the traditional nationalist organisations as vehicles of struggle, workers will time and again come up against reformist misleadership and betrayals -as the militant populist of today " emerges as the reformist collaborator of tomorrow. is revolutionary Marxists alone who, intervening in day-to-day struggles which are bound to emerge, turn workers to the only forces which can pursue their independent class interests, their independent strength, organisations, programme and party -a :Trotskyist party in South Africa, as a section of the reconstructed Fourth No. 1 Nov. 1979 DISCUSSION BULLETIN

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Rosemary Hardwick revie! edited by Dorothy Atki and Gail Warshofsky and Press at £12.50. is "Women in Russia" Ison, Alexander Dalin, published by Harvester A rational way of encouraging reproduction would be to provide communal dining, childcare and other hitherto 'domestic" facilities, together with a generous system of maternity leave, etc. Wednesday 30 January career, and raising a family.

The Russian husband rarely sees childcare and hoüsework as his responsibility: a constant theme of the book is the prevalent sexism.

Arguments that motherhood

----- pull-quotes -----

Ford strike promised to serve as a i focal point,

allies of black workers, and at the same-time, promote