S. African blacks in mass revolt

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country's supposedly intensely security can only have intensiMorecombe and Wise; Rogers and Hammerstein; Marks and Spencer; it is hard to find two names so clearly fused into a single entity as Callaghan and Together, both under Wilson and then with Callaghan as Prime Minister, these twin advocates of IMF policies in the Labour movement worked to ram home three solid years of wage controls; together they imposed successive rounds of spending cuts; together they raised unemployment; together they inflicted the biggest cut in real wages on British workers for over 100 years.

• Unseemly rush Yet amazingly. enough workers' credulity is now to be tested with paign by union leaders ort Callaghan, supposedl Healey out e Labo lip!

In the wake of the stage-managed "socialist" rhetoric of Labour's Special Conference there has been an unseemly rush of formerly left-talking union leaders anxious to back Callaghan.

TGWU leader Moss Evans, and ASTMS General Secretary Clive Jenkins led the way: they" have even been joined by Stalinist Ken Gill, General Secretary of TASS.

Lame story

Jenkins specifically called on Callaghan to stay on beyond the autumn-to lead Labour in the next election.

As an excuse he offered the lame story that this would give Tony Benn the opportunity to prepare himself to lead the This rightward swing by the 'lefts' has been greeted by a chorus of praise for Callaghan from such bureaucrats as GMWU_leader Basnett, NUR leader Weighell (who last week appealed to Thatcher to : duce a "fair" incomes po as well as the extreme wing AUEW leadership.

More committed The story retailed in the press is that union leaders would rather keep Callaghan in place than allow Healey to step inbecause they believe Healey is more committed to wage Of course it is impossible to be more committed than Callaghan to wage controls. In reality, TUC leaders are panicking at the clear evidence of the leftward movement in the ranks of the Labour Party and the unions.

The standing ovation for Benn at the end of the Special Conference has been correctly recognised not as an indication of support for Benn's actual report for liches socalise but. SUP-ULI image he has created with the help of the media. ntroicy!) right For Botha's racist regime n South Africa the troubles tre now coming in ›atallions.

The most dramatic and surprising of last week's events was he remarkably successful ittempt (reportedly by the ANC) to sabotage two of the juarded SASOL plants.

The SASOL: coal-to-oil whites.

Talk about socialism is one thing: but with the economic crisis now pulling the rug from under the Thatcher government and creating the prospect of major class battles this autumn, TUC leaders suddenly recognise that what could be at stake is not simply leadership of the Labour opposition, but selection of the next Prime Minister.

Benn of course is wedded to the bankrupt parliamentary reformism of the "Peace, Jobs and Freedom" document: a Benn government could resolve none of the problems facing the working class.

Consciousness

But the election and exposure of such a government in conditions of mass struggle would open up the possibility of a rapid development of revolutionary consciousness in the working class.

This would challenge the cosy privileged positions of the Starvation and food conversion plants are crucial to South Africa's plans to overcome any international economic sanctions which might be imposed against it and towards which Arab oil producing countries made new moves last week.

This glaring failure of state fied the fears of South African Clive Jenkins entire labour bureaucracy.

With the right wing leaders of the Party at a loss to deal with a militant rank and file and openly feuding among themselves, desperate measures were therefore needed to keep Benn out.

Hence the "resurrect Callaghan" campaign. It is designed to prevent the issue of the Labour leadership being sharply raised this autumn; to head off the certain tide of anger that would erupt if Healey were forced in by the PLP; and to provide a breathing space for the Party's right wing to work out a longer term strategy.

It must be combatted. in trade union branches and CLPs. The fight must be redoubled for the ousting of Callaghan and Healey, and for the construction of a socialist leadership as the basis for a workers government to carry out a programme of nationalisation of banks and basic industry without compensation under workers' manage. ment.

These fears will not have been settled by the monstrous 30-year jail sentence dished out last week to Renfrew Christie a white academic who had "revealed" to the ANC the location of the SASOL plants -a fact which anyone can discover in a public library.

But while the SASOL sabotage makes the racists jump, what now makes them permanently sick with fear is the daily evidence of growing mobilisations of the black masses.

The "independent" homeland of the Transkei last week had to impose a state of emergency in response to the massive school boycott and the growth of demonstrations against the stooge black regime.

Gathering struggle

In the Cape, the leaders called off the school boycott, reportedly because of fears of massacres as the anniversary of Soweto (June 16) approached.

But noone can see this as a defeat for a mass movement of youth and workers which is bound to continue and which is still gathering strength.

The textile strike ended with a partial victory for the strikers. But a strike of meat workers continues and is being backed up by a consumer boycott.

And in the all-important gold mines, thousands of angry workers had to be dispersed by police tear gas at a mining community centre near Klerksdorp in the Transvaal, and one gold mine had to stop production because of strike action.

All these events have highlighted the problem of leadership of a mass movement which is everyday more clearly. on the offensive.

The Zulu homeland leader Chief Buthelezi has, as during the Soweto events four years ago, demonstrated the extreme dangers of the kind of "leadership" he and his fellow bourgeois and petty bourgeois politicians provide.

His reaction to the SASOL sabotage was to call for armed black vigilantes-to protect buildings!

SASOL plant

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WEEK BY WEEK Wednesday June 1980

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Tanzania's non-aligner socialism'