Notes by the Way: South Africa the Golden (1946)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

South Africa the Golden

Gold mining is by far the largest industry in South Africa. It employs 40,000 Europeans and 360,000 natives. It pays more than £17,000,000 a year dividends to the shareholders. What it pays to the natives and how they are treated has been described in an article by E. S. Sachs, South African Workers’ Delegate to the I.L.O. (Manchester Guardian, 19/8/46).

“They receive an average cash wage of 2s. 2d. per shift . . . Part of this meagre wage is deducted to repay advances made to the worker on recruitment for boots and other purposes. The African worker must also buy a cheap mattress or sacking for use on the concrete bunk on which he sleeps in the compound where he is forced to live. He must also buy some clothing . . . There is no extra pay for overtime or Sunday work. He is provided with food and medical attention free, but receives no sick pay. The Chamber of Mines estimates the cost of food to be 5.28d. and medical services 1.15d. per shift per man. The only paid leave the worker gets is on Good Friday and Christmas Day.”

In 1943 a Government Commission recommended an increase of 3d. a shift, but the owners refused to pay it, and “the Government did nothing except introduce an emergency regulation prohibiting meetings of Africans on land proclaimed as a mining area.”

They are not forbidden by law to form trade unions, and many are organised, but they “may not leave their compounds without a special pass from their employer and are subject to severe penalties, including imprisonment with hard labour, for absenting themselves from work or for any breach of their contract.”

The natives have had no increase of pay since 1914 and their union has pointed out that their wages were actually much higher 60 years ago than to-day.

We wonder if the native workers derive much comfort from the United Nations Charter, of which South Africa is a signatory, proclaiming the determination of the upholders “to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom!”

An appropriate footnote is the following news item in The Star (July 24th, 1946) announcing the arrival by ‘plane of a cargo of very important persons from South Africa, on official and private business in London.

“In the silver Skymasler “Drakensburg,” belonging to South African Airways, were 34 millionaires, multi-millionaires, or near millionaires, including Van der Byl, Field-Marshal Smuts’ right-hand man and a leading figure in South African industry. The party, most of them from Johannesburg, were met by Sir Eric Crankshaw, Secretary of the Government’s Hospitality Fund."

Russia, Turkey and the Dardanelles

While British Imperialism seeks to safeguard capitalist interests in the Middle East by keeping troops in Transjordan and Palestine and by military agreements with Egypt and Iraq, Russian Imperialism counters with a demand that Turkey shall permit the setting up of Russian military forces on Turkish territory in the Dardanelles area and by promoting its own puppet movement in Persian Azerbaijan. Russia has also been carrying on propaganda to secure the support of Arabs in the Middle East countries as a means of reducing British influence there. In short, the two old firms carry on as all through the 19th century notwithstanding that Russia is now labelled “Communist” and Britain “Labour.”

Twenty-four years ago, when Russia was weak, it was Russian and British Communist Party policy to pose as the friends of the Turks because Turkey was then in conflict with Britain, and British troops were in occupation of Constantinople and the Dardanelles. The Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain accordingly produced a declaration demanding that Turkey be freed from the Imperialist occupation forces.

“The E.C. of the C.P.G.B. sends its greeting to the British Muslim Association and desires to join with it in the demand . . . that Constantinople and Adrianople shall be restored unconditionally to the custody of the Turkish people.” 

(The Communist, September 23rd, 1922.)

Now Russia is stronger so the old policy goes on the scrap heap and the demand is made that Russia have forces on Turkish soil.

The same resolution went on to demand that North Africa, including Tripoli, be given complete independence. It also opposed the “insidious regime” of the League of Nations mandatory system.

In view of this it is entertaining to observe that at the Paris meeting of the Big Four Powers in May of this year Russia put in a claim for a United Nations Trusteeship or Mandate for herself over Tripoli, a claim that was later abandoned in face of opposition and watered down to a claim for the appointment of a Russian Administrator with an Italian deputy and an international advisory committee. (Daily Telegraph, 11/5/46).

Longer Life—and Shorter

While one body of the scientist hirelings ot capitalism are busy improving atom bombs, germ warfare and other means of destruction, we read the following (Evening Standard, 16/8/46): —

“First details are disclosed to-day of the existence in Britain of research on making people live longer and becoming more useful . . . the possibility of increasing life to as much as 200 year has been freely discussed.”

3 Per Cent. by Another Name

“New York, Friday.—A U.S. agreement to lend £2,500,000 to Saudi Arabia, announced to-day, contains no mention of interest payments. 

The word ‘interest’ was omitted because Moslems oppose on religious grounds the charging or paying of interest. Under the heading ‘Thanksgiving,’ however. Saudi Arabia will pay the usual 3 per cent.”

(Daily Mail, 10/8/46.)

German Social Democrats and the Russian Zone Election

Elections are being held in the Russian Zone of Germany, and as, under what the Communists call democracy, they are prevented by the Russians from putting up candidates, the S.D.P. has advised its members to spoil their voting papers. The following appeal was published in their journal, the “Social Democrat” :–

“The election in your zone is not a democratic election. Should you, therefore, stay away from the poll altogether? That would really be best. but for many of you it might have heavy consequences. Our advice is, therefore, that you should take part in the poll but demonstrate against constraint of conscience by making your voting papers clearly invalid. Make this action a united and powerful demonstration for freedom. Do not divide yourselves by voting here or there for some other party that appears to you as a lesser evil.”

The Manchester Guardian correspondent (20/8/46) who quotes this, describes it as “political folly,” on the ground that it would be better to vote for the Christian Democratic Union or some other group in order to strengthen the opposition to the Communists (now calling themselves “United Socialist Party”).

While we are opposed to the reformism of the German Social-Democrats, this refusal any longer to vote for the “lesser evil” indicates a marked improvement on their past behaviour.

Plenty—For Those Who Have the Money

The following quotations, one from the Daily Worker on British capitalism and the other by Mr. Hugh Chevins on Russian State Capitalism, need no comment: —

“Luxury Feeders. Why should there be, to all intents and purposes, no limitation at all on the amount and variety of food which luxury purchasers can acquire, while the bulk of the families in the country have to prepare for still further sacrifices on the food front?” (Daily Worker, 8/7/46.)

“It was once said that anyone may dine at the Ritz in London—if he can pay the price. The same remark applies with equal truth and more irony to eating at the smart hotels and restaurants in Communist Moscow. . . . The average money wage is reliably estimated to be about 350 roubles a month. That amount can be spent in a single meal with the utmost ease at the Metropole, National, Moscow or Savoy Hotels, and at the Astoria, Caucasus or Europa restaurants, but only by the privileged class.” (Mr. Hugh Chevins, Industrial Correspondent, Daily Telegraph, 9/8/46, after a recent visit to Moscow.)

Shades of the Versailles Treaty

It was common talk early in the recent war that at least the politicians would remember the errors, the cynicism and the idiocies of the Versailles Treaty after last war and avoid them this time. Here is the lament of the Manchester Guardian on the outcome of the labours of the foreign ministers of the Allied

Powers to date : —

“That it is a bad job few will deny. As they stand the draft treaties are deplorable. They follow no accepted political or economic principles. They are both unjust and inconsistent. No attempt has been made to discover the facts or consult the will of the inhabitants by commissions of inquiry or plebiscites. Each one is a compromise between rival Powers who openly fear and distrust each other. Even so they represent the best that can be done by patient and enduring diplomacy, and as such they will be welcomed by a weary Europe. Blessed are the peacemakers—even if the peace in this case is one which passeth all understanding.” 

(Manchester Guardian, 10/7/46.)

Edgar Hardcastle

Exploitation in South Africa (1976)

From the July 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to The Star (Johannesburg) of 28th April 1976, the recent increase of 18 per cent, in the price of “mealies” (maize cobs) will help erode “the small reservoir of goodwill that remains among more than 20m. Black and Brown South Africans”. Mealie is basic to the cost of living of something like three-quarters of South Africa’s population and “few products of inflation can weigh as heavily on the Black community as an increased mealie price”. This will lead to a worsening in race relations because many blacks cannot afford the increase. The article says that whilst an increase was “inevitable” it should be remembered that “vast numbers of our mealie farmers are relatively unproductive and inefficient”.

The Star says the solution must be two-fold. First, encourage the efficient farmers and discourage the inefficient ones. This presumably means to encourage the use of labour-saving machinery so that eventually, through competition, the “unproductive” farmers will be forced out of business. The second part of the “solution” is to pay the blacks more so that they can “afford to absorb knocks like the increased mealie price”. To make this practicable they must be “better trained and utilised” (our emphasis). Also they must be allowed to form “more effective industrial bargaining machinery” (i.e. Unions).

Black trade unions have no recognition in South Africa but it seems that the South African capitalist class and their agents, through their media like The Star, are beginning to recognize that they have a vast potential industrial proletariat which if it could be put to use profitably could bring them untold surplus-value in the future. The problem is that they need training, and that costs money and takes time. For the capitalists it is better to “adopt” the embryonic unions and have them under their wings than to allow them to develop in direct antagonism to the employers. The benevolence of the South African capitalists is staggering: once they have a black working class which is industrialized, working for a few pennies more, then they can carry on eating mealie and be grateful for it.

Our advice to workers must always be that, necessary as it obviously is for them to struggle against pressure to reduce the little they have, they should be seeking to understand why it is that one class can sell the goods which the workers produce alone and yet which do not belong to them unless they can buy them back. Once they understand this they will know that the time is long overdue for the change to Socialism.

T.K.

We are indebted to a correspondent in Johannesburg for supplying the material used above.

Running Commentary: Too old at 35 (1985)

The Running Commentary column from the June 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Too old at 35

Capitalist ideology is underpinned by many lies and delusions. Expressed simply, this is one of them: "If you work hard at passing your exams and at your job, security and prosperity will be yours". Along with this delusion goes the notion that a worker can somehow be elevated by passing exams, into an imaginary "middle-class" status. In fact there is no middle-class; anyone who faces the indignity of having to sell their labour power for a wage or a salary is in the working class, no matter what their educational qualifications. A particularly cruel reminder of this appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 25 March 1985:

Fifty advanced computer scientists and technicians carrying out research for Philips Electronics have lost their jobs because "they are too old at 50". The management of Philips Research Laboratories at Redhill. Surrey, are taking on young graduates to replace them. They [union officials] accused the company of following the example of the Japanese electrical firm Hitachi, which tried last December to get all workers over 35 at its Hirwaun colour TV plant in South Wales to take redundancy.

Hitachi said in a letter to all employees that staff over 35 were slow, prone to sickness, had poor eyesight and were more resistant to change.

The article went on to say that "graduates cost less than older staff' — one more example of the ruthless, cost-cutting nature of capitalism.

How inconvenient to the capitalist class that workers still want to go on living — with the expense of redundancy pay, unemployment benefit and pensions this entails — after their abilities have been consumed and they find themselves discarded.

Price of gold

The South African government has recently offered a sop to reform by committing itself to abolition of the obnoxious laws which prohibit sex and marriage between men and women of different racial origin. This reform is rendered virtually meaningless by other laws on racial segregation which remain, such as the Group Areas Act, which segregates residential and business areas along racial lines. This means that despite the abolition of the "immorality" laws, a man and a woman of different races involved in a sexual relationship will still be unable to set up home together.

Those people who see this legal change as the first step towards liberalisation of South African society must surely have had their hopes dashed by another event in South Africa last month which demonstrated yet again the odious policies of the South African ruling class.

The event was the dismissal of 17,000 black gold miners who were sacked by their employers. Anglo-American Corporation, for causing stoppages and disruption in protest at the sacking of trade union officials. Not only have these workers lost their jobs; they have also been transported back to various "tribal homelands". Under South African law the majority of black gold miners are forced to live as migrants, without their families, in work camps close to the mines.

These gold mines produce the commodity that is the basis of the enormous wealth of the South African ruling class. One of the mines where workers have been sacked — the Vaal Reefs mine in the western Transvaal — is the biggest gold mine in the world and produces 13 per cent of South African gold. In a situation where there are many poor workers, mostly black but increasingly white too. desperate to work, it is only too easy for the capitalist class to replace sacked miners with others who they hope will be less militant.

It is the grossest form of hypocrisy for the South African ruling class to talk of liberalisation in a society in which workers continue to be repressed in this way. No one should be taken in by the cosmetic changes taking place in South Africa at the moment which are intended to appease international opinion and so open up more markets for South African goods. The oppressive structures of both apartheid and capitalism remain intact.

Coup in Sudan

While President Nimeiri was busy trying to rally support for his regime among American leaders the Sudanese army, supported by other sections of the Sudanese ruling class, seized governmental power in a manner that is only too familiar in countries where the absence of democratic institutions means that the only way of changing government personnel is through a coup d'état. Of course this military government, like many others, is promising a quick return to civilian rule as soon as conditions permit the holding of elections.

The complaint of the army and its supporters was that Nimeiri, after sixteen years in power, was mismanaging the economy. The ruling class was also angry at the way in which Nimeiri had imposed the barbaric Islamic code of law in order to secure his own political ends by courting the support of the fundamentalist Moslem Brotherhood. This marriage of convenience was. however, short-lived. Fearing a challenge to his power from Islamic leaders, Nimeiri had purged the Moslem Brotherhood and imprisoned its leaders, blaming them for unpopular policies. As a result Nimeiri lost his only real power base in Sudanese society, leaving him vulnerable to a coup from rival sections of the Sudanese ruling class.

Sudan is a desperately poor country currently ravaged by widespread drought which has exacerbated agricultural policies intended to produce quick profits for the landowners at the expense of both land and people. Its scarce food resources are under increasing pressure due to the huge influx of refugees from Ethiopia, themselves trying to escape famine. In the south of the country there has been a civil war in progress led by a rival Christian army officer. The majority of the population are totally dependent on American grain shipments if they are to avoid starvation. This American "aid" is granted in return for Sudan maintaining a pro-western stance in an area that is of great strategic importance because of its proximity to important oil supplies.

What is certain in these murky waters of political intrigue and double-dealing is that the lives of the vast majority of Sudan’s 22 million people will be largely unaffected by these shufflings of official positions among the Sudanese ruling class. Drought now affects 4 million native farmers and relief workers are currently predicting that one million people will die in Sudan in the coming year (The Times, 9 April 1985). It matters not one jot to them, nor will it affect their chances of survival, that they are now being ruled by a military rather than a civilian government.

Backward races. Lessons from South Africa. (1927)

From the August 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Party speakers are continually being asked whether Socialism will have to wait until the black and yellow races have been converted. The questioner usually is very gloomy about the whole business. “What is the use,” he says, “of preaching Socialism here in England if all our work is going to be ruined by the backwardness of Japs and Chinese and negroes and other non-white races?” We have for our part never been much perturbed. Capitalism and the development of industry are the necessary and sufficient producers of Socialist thought and Socialist thinkers. The process is slow, but it is universal wherever the capitalist social system extends. We have no fear that any section of the working class in the industrialised nations will suddenly find itself isolated ahead of the main body of the Socialist forces. Most emphatically we do not expect this in England, despite the fact that the general level of political understanding is probably higher here than in any of the Great Powers. We know well enough what slow and painful work it is to build up a Socialist organisation. The vision which distresses our questioners, of a clear-headed, enthusiastic working class in Great Britain panting for Socialism and impatiently waiting for backward foreign persons to wake up and come into line, is hardly in keeping with the facts. If we get on with our job of propagating Socialism at home we can safely leave the workers in other countries to do likewise.

It is interesting to observe, therefore, what encouraging advances have been made by the black workers in South Africa. The white workers organised in the South African Industrial Federation deliberately and persistently refused membership to blacks, and placed barriers in the way of attempts to organise them. The whites, including the South African “Labour” Party, supported the Government policy of maintaining political, economic and geographical barriers against the black races. In Cape Town the Cape Federation of Labour Unions was a little more alive to working-class interests and admitted “coloured” workers (i.e., those of “mixed” race) to membership, although it still interested itself only in those who were classed as skilled workers. In January, 1919, some two dozen black workers, despairing of assistance from the whites, took on the huge task of forming a Union for all black workers and founded the Industrial and Commercial Union (I.C.U., now the Industrial & Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa). It has made great progress in spite of the difficulties placed in its way by the white organisations and by the Governments, and hopes are entertained of spreading eventually throughout the continent.

The position of the I.C.U. was greatly strengthened last year by the decision of the International Federation of Trade Unions to accept its affiliation in place of the white workers’ S.A. Industrial Federation, which was all but defunct. The condition laid down and accepted was that the I.C.U. must declare its readiness to link up with trade unions of white workers whenever the latter were ready to adopt that policy. The whites in the newly-formed South African Trades Union Congress were so much taken back by this recognition of the black trade unions that they have now declared their willingness to discuss with the I.C.U. the possibility of accepting all workers, without reference to race, into an enlarged Trades Union Congress. There is therefore a likelihood that at no distant date racial divisions among the organised workers in South Africa may be overcome. At least the white “last ditchers” who cannot tolerate association with black skins may be compelled to withdraw from the T.U.C. and conduct their (fortunately) hopeless fight in isolation. And this promising development will be the result not of white but of black common sense and clear thinking.

A declaration setting forth the policy of the I.C.U. will serve to show that a partial understanding of the class position of the workers has been attained by the black if not by the white unions :—

“Whereas the interests of the workers and those of the employers are opposed to each other, the former living by selling their labour, receiving for it only part of the wealth they produce ; and the latter living by exploiting the labour of the workers, depriving the workers of a part of the product of their labour in the form of profit, no peace can be between the two classes—a struggle must always obtain about the division of the products of human labour, until the workers, through their industrial organisations take from the capitalist class the means of production, to be owned and controlled by the workers for the benefit of all, instead of a few.”

This declaration contains one very serious fallacy, but even so it will compare well with the majority of foggy aims contained in trade union rule books even in this country. It is a natural mistake for disfranchised black workers, legally barred from effective participation in most political activities in South Africa, to place their hopes in industrial action. We do not doubt, moreover, that experience of the uses and limits of economic organisation will soon induce the black workers of South Africa to see that control of the State is essential to the achievement of Socialism by the working class.

Edgar Hardcastle

Party News Briefs (1957)

Party News from the March 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Paddington Branch has had a full programme for the past few months. Now, once every month, an evening is devoted to critical discussion on the current Socialist Standard. At a prior meeting individual members choose a particular article which they will closely study in the meantime. Then, on the appointed evening both the effectiveness and shortcomings of the chosen article are gone into thoroughly. Paddington Branch hope that in this way they will be contributing to the improvements of our journal which so richly deserves a wider readership.

With the dual aim of making the Party's point of view known and improving their own knowledge, the Branch have invited several representatives of significant non-Socialist organisations to visit the Branch. Mr. E. S. (Solly) Sachs, the former General Secretary of the South African Workers Union, whose opposition to the division of the South African Trade Union movement on racial lines was one of the reasons for his virtual exile from that country, spoke on the history of the South African working class. On another occasion a local Communist came to face the Branch's passionate condemnation of his Party's record.

The Branch will certainly continue their efforts to stress the world-wide nature of Socialism when a Movement of Colonial Freedom representative visits the Branch to be followed soon after by someone from Argentina. Members are themselves encouraged to address the Branch, giving a Socialist slant on the fields in which they have especial interest. Two notable occasions were Comrade Warlow’s talk on automation and Ian Jones's on the social significance of the plays of Bertold Brecht.

Chelsea and Fulham Branch. Owing to the illness of two or three members of the Branch and the transfer of another, and the difficulties of others to attend Branch meetings, all activity was suspended for the latter part of last year and the first weeks of this year. The Branch is now meeting again on the first and third Thursdays in the month at 8 p.m. at 34, St. George's Square (Com. Wilcox, top flat), S.W.l. The Branch Secretary is Comrade Newell, to whom all correspondence should be addressed at Head Office, 52, Clapham High Street, S.W.4.

Lectures and discussions are being arranged and the Branch hopes to commence outdoor meetings at Gloucester Road and Earls Court in the beginning of April. Members, sympathisers and readers of the Socialist Standard will be welcomed to all the indoor and outdoor meetings.

Obituary. We regret to learn of the death on 28th December last, of Comrade Donald Fincham at the age of 79. He was a member for many years and staunchly put the Party case on every possible occasion to his workmates. We extend to his family our sincere sympathy and condolences.

Meeting. At the Peace Pledge Union, 6, Endsleigh Street, W.C.l, on Thursday, 7th March, at 8 p.m. Here our Comrade Read will talk on "War, its Causes and Remedy.” Admission free, Questions and Discussion.

Phyllis Howard

Editorial: How to defeat apartheid (1986)

Editorial from the September 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fundamental need of the world capitalist class is to exploit the wealth-producing working class. They are empowered to legally rob us (for they make the laws) and that robbery is the source of all profit. The worker is to the capitalist not a fellow human being but a wage slave to be used until every drop of profit is squeezed out. It is within the context of that ruthless social system that apartheid must be comprehended.

Apartheid is legalised and politically organised racism. It is a legacy of the colonial ideology of the European plunderers who traversed a planet looking for resources to appropriate and humans to enslave economically. The essential feature of apartheid is that the white people of European descent (Dutch Afrikaaners and British) are inherently superior to the black people of African origin. Biologically, anthropologically. genetically and historically there is not a scrap of evidence in support of this racist mythology The defender of apartheid is intellectually as ignorant as socially arrogant.

Racism has been of considerable use to the South African ruling class. They have used it as a means of monopolising power in southern Africa to the exclusion of the African majority. No black worker has the free right to vote, to assemble freely, to oppose racism openly or to travel without restriction beyond the confines of the slum reservations. The gross evils of apartheid have been chronicled fully, especially of late, and there can surely be no worker with eyes to see and ears to hear who is not aware of the atrocities which have been perpetrated in the name of superior white civilisation.

So, what is to be done about apartheid? Before addressing that question. let us consider who it is that must do it. There are two classes in society — the robbers and the robbed and there can be no collaboration between them. At present the robber class — the international capitalists — have turned against apartheid. They have done so firstly because such overt tyranny is bringing them into disrepute and the capitalists do not like excessive.,Nazi-style class rule: they prefer it to be done more subtly. Secondly, the very high profits made by apartheid's capitalists contrast with those of other capitalists who have to deal with trade union organised labour, so many capitalists resent the advantage of their racist competitors and want to move in on the South African market. Thirdly, and most importantly, the majority of capitalists are economic rationalists and do not favour institutionalised racism: they wish to exploit any worker of any colour in any place and do not want to waste opportunities to profit from black skills and energies because of obsolete racist barriers. The multinational Anglo-American Corporation, which makes huge profits out of South Africa's valuable mineral resources, has held this view for several years. So the international capitalists are putting pressure on the apartheid ruling class to put their house in order. This is not a moral attack against racism (capitalism knows no morals which cannot earn dividends) but one based on the needs of their system.

Economic sanctions against South Africa have been called for. This means that capitalists are being asked to boycott trade with the apartheid capitalists and if sanctions are imposed by governments it will be illegal to do business with South Africa in certain fields. Thatcher, with all the disingenuity of a fellow-travelling racist, says that she opposes government-imposed sanctions but will allow "voluntary" sanctions. This, she says with a straight face, is because she does not want to hurt the black South Africans. Thatcher's opponents in the administration of British capitalism (Kinnock. Owen and the rest) insist that the government must impose sanctions. Interestingly, many of the loudest voices who are now crying with indignation about the need for sanctions did absolutely nothing to impose them against racist South Africa during their course of the last Labour government. Sanctions were imposed in the 1960s when what was then Rhodesia persisted in its racist administration of capitalism. The tactic failed. The failure reflected the hard fact that governments cannot control the market: if there are profits to be made the capitalists will find a way of breaking sanction laws. It must be added that companies like Lonrho which did so were never taken to court by the then Labour government. and there is evidence that sanctions were evaded with the knowledge, if not the collusion, of that government.

It is unlikely that sanctions against South Africa would have much effect. For example capitalists in India, formally committed to sanctions, can simply export commodities to Sri Lanka from where they can easily be reexported to South Africa. Nominally independent countries like Zimbabwe, which is in fact dominated to a great extent by multinational capital, could easily be used by British or US companies to trade with South Africa. The capitalists have their own economic incentives to replace apartheid with a system of exploitation in accordance with international norms but it is foolish to trust the bosses to fight racism and we would be limited in our aim if "business as usual" was all we could wish to achieve.

This returns us to the question: what is to be done about apartheid? The answer is that the struggle against apartheid cannot be separated from the struggle for the emancipation of workers everywhere. This does not depend on the summits of ruling class sloganisers but on the active and conscious political movement of workers ourselves, divided neither by colour or country.

The power of South African capital depends on the weakness of workers in that country. The organisational efforts of our fellow workers in COSATU (many of them now in prison) are worth much more than the praise of nationalist would-be rulers. In South Africa as elsewhere, the demand for political rights must be in opposition to any new ruling elite. Workers in South Africa will learn to reject the limits of the system. They will see that while production for profit remains (under private or state supervision) there will be no end to oppression, that only the defeat of capitalism will end the basic problems of all workers.

The division in South Africa is not simply racial: there are plenty of poor white wage slaves, just as there are black capitalists elsewhere in Africa. Colour is neither the problem nor the solution. Class is the problem — establishing a classless, propertyless, stateless system of society is the practical solution. To reform capitalism is not enough: to build Brixtons for South African workers instead of Sowetos is simply to exchange one condition of poverty for another. The wealth producers have suffered for too long: we do not want better, but only the best. In order to achieve that we must disarm our rulers politically — deny them the right to coerce us — and dispossess them economically — deny them the right to legally rob us. That is revolutionary socialism and united under its aim our brothers and sisters in South Africa, with workers everywhere, will win.

Apartheid: Divide and Rule (1982)

From the May 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

   Apartheid is essentially a pre-capitalist form of oppression; it is an attempt to impose the colour patterns of a frontier community onto a modern industrial economy. It will never work properly because what the government is trying to separate, the economy keeps bringing together. (Socialist Viewpoint, SPNZ, Sept-Oct. 1981.)

A traditional feature of apartheid has been a legally sanctioned colour bar broadly restricting skilled work to whites. The underlying racial prejudice upon which this was erected can be traced back to the days of slavery, when manual labour was held in contempt by Europeans. The prohibition of slavery in 1834 was a significant factor behind the Great Trek, a mass migration of disgruntled Boers beyond the reach of British jurisdiction. According to Freda Troup:

  The assumption that non-whites were the labouring class had spread across the land with the trekkers. Only in the Cape where Malay Slaves had from early days formed an important section of the artisan community had the colour line between skilled and unskilled worker largely been smudged and ignored. [1]

White penetration of the interior dispossessed many of the original occupants of what had been their tribal land, forcing them into various forms of servitude on white farms. The disruption of the tribal subsistence economy through the influence of tax and trade was intensified by the discovery of gold and diamonds in the second half of the nineteenth century. Vast numbers of Africans were sucked into the burgeoning towns to form a pool of unskilled labour while immigrant uitlanders, mainly from Europe, comprised the bulked of skilled labour in the mines. This pattern of employment reflected the prevailing differences between distinctive cultures—one, technologically primitive and agrarian; the other, advanced and urban-based. In time, however, it became fixed by custom and reinforced in legislation.

In the first decades of this century another stream of rural peasants poured into the towns: the landless Afrikaner. The devastation of the Boer War, periodic depressions and the shortage of land aggravated by the old Roman Dutch law of inheritance which subdivided farms into units too small to be economic, all contributed to the dispossession of thousands of Afrikaners of their traditional means of livelihood.

Lacking the skills of an urban proletariat and resentful of the wage-depressing influence of competition from low paid blacks, this substratum of “poor whites”, numbering 160,000 by 1923 (10 per cent of the white population), became a thorny political issue. In 1910 the two ex-Boer republics and the Cape and Natal provinces became one state under a single parliament, with the franchise largely (later completely) in the hands of the whites—a prerogative they readily exercised to entrench their privileged position. One of the first pieces of legislation introduced by the new union parliament was the 1911 Mines and Works Act which enforced a colour bar on the mines. The ideology of the Afrikaner farmer was thus transplanted into industry, as indeed were many small farmers themselves:

   A new social and economic frontier had taken the place of the old frontier of land and settlement. Where once the natives were excluded from good land and ample water, now they were kept from skilled labour and high wages. [2]

The mining companies did not in general welcome this intrusion of a backward ideology into the market place. But in their efforts to overcome the restrictions of the colour bar they met with the well organised resistance of the white trade union movement and a South African Labour Party which bitterly opposed the replacement of white by cheaper black labour.

In 1922 this issue came to a head when, following a big fall in the price of gold, employers were compelled to contravene the colour bar and employ blacks in semi-skilled work to cut costs. The strike that followed escalated into open revolt. Trade unionists, communists and nationalist Afrikaners combined under the odd-sounding banner “Workers of the world fight and unite for a white South Africa”. The “Rand Revolution”, as this was called, was mercilessly crushed with the loss of 230 lives. The miners were forced to accept a pay cut and the companies were left free to increase the proportion of cheap black labour, though technical advances enabled many of the jobs open to blacks to be fragmented and reclassified as unskilled work.

Two years later, the unpopular Smuts government which had sided with the employers against the white miners was defeated by a Labour-Nationalist coalition led by Hertsog. In a sense, what the pact symbolised was an alliance between the white farmers and the white working class:

   Cresswell (leader of the Labour Party) devoted his whole political life to ousting the blacks from the mines. Hertsog’s party on the other hand wanted cheap and servile Africans on the farms. The exclusion of Africans dovetailed with the farmers' insatiable demand for labour. This compatibility formed the economic basis of the partnership between white landowners and the labour aristocracy. [3] 

The Pact government represented a watershed in South African history in that employers no longer offered serious resistance to the tightening stranglehold of racism on the economy but concentrated instead on making the best possible use of the system to which they had resigned themselves. Job reservation was vigorously reinforced on the mines in 1926, extended into the emerging manufacturing sector and subsequently set concrete hard over the course of several decades. To counter the possibility of unemployed white workers finding common cause with blacks, a “civilised labour” policy was pursued which gave preferential treatment to, and dramatically increased the proportion of, whites in state run services such as the railways. From 1924 onwards, in contrast to the preceding quarter century of almost continuous industrial turmoil, there were virtually no serious disputes in the mines.

In return for their compliance with these policies the government, which relied heavily on the mines for its revenue (vast sums of which went to subsidise white agriculture), assisted the mining companies in their efforts to hold down black wages and obtain labourers. Indeed an adequate supply of unskilled labour which had been a vital requirement of the mining industry became even more so under the Pact government. The colour bar tended to perpetuate the labour intensive nature of gold mining and hence the need for plentiful labour; the sheer scale of mining meant that working techniques and the balance between labour and capital intensity were fixed at the beginning of a mine’s life and could not be significantly altered thereafter. But holding down black wages to such low levels threatened the supply of unskilled labour which was attracted by higher wages and better conditions in manufacturing. However, the mining companies could not raise wages without jeopardising the life of marginal mines (which comprised half the industry) and hence the employment of many white miners. Thus influx control was tightened, indirectly compelling blacks to seek work on the mines or white farms. This still did not ensure an adequate supply of labour for the mines, which operated below capacity in the period 1924-30. Consequently, the mines with government backing recruited extensively from abroad so that by 1973 79 per cent of black miners were foreign contract workers. (Political developments since then in countries such as Mozambique have, however, disrupted this source of labour causing black wages to rise.)

By the 1960s a paradoxical development in the South African economy had become glaringly apparent: an acute and growing shortage of skilled labour alongside high black unemployment (even amongst the more educated blacks). An important factor behind this was the shift away from labour intensive farming and mining industries—the traditional pillars of the apartheid economy—towards the more capital intensive manufacturing industry. This in turn placed a growing strain on the colour bar. In 1945 the market value of mining companies was R972m while that of non-mining companies was R754m. By 1965 the positions had been reversed, with the former rising to R3664m and the latter R5399m. Ironically, the government played a vital part in this trend by encouraging the growth of a local manufacturing industry during the war by means of protectionist measures and by setting up various state corporations such as ISCOR (iron and steel) VECOR (heavy engineering goods) and SASOL (oil gas and chemicals from coal). Indeed the development of the mining industry itself was a powerful stimulus for manufacturing.

Growing concern over the economic bottleneck which the shortage of skilled labour had created has led the government’s own Manpower Commission to state recently that “South Africa will not be able to realise its full developmental potential if it persists in attempting to secure its high level manpower requirements mainly from the white population group”. [4] Political reform had become economically imperative.

The government’s response at first was one of greater, if cautious, flexibility: 

   Inevitably non-whites unofficially—job reservation and colour bar regardless—infiltrated traditional white spheres of employment: coloured postmen, Indian railwaymen, African drivers on non-white buses, non-white clerks and typists. Especially were non-whites more and more to be found doing skilled and semi-skilled industrial work, generally at wages well below the white minimum. “There is no doubt”, commented the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce, “that employers in general are keen to develop the skills of Bantu workers”. [1] 

By 1965 the Deputy Minster of Labour reported that 39 per cent of the economically active Africans were operatives or semi-skilled workers.

Yet still the shortage of skilled labour persisted. Accordingly, the government itself has moved from passively condoning breaches of the colour bar to actively lifting restrictions on the employment of black labour. The Muldergate Scandal of 1977 brought to power a new prime minister, and marked a shift in the balance of power from the verkrampte (conservative) to the verligte (liberal) wing of the ruling National Party and prepared the ground for further liberalisation. By late 1980 Fanie Botha, Minister of Labour, proposed new legislation allowing more skilled job training to be opened to blacks. But despite the evidence of job reservation rapidly crumbling round the edges, there remain big obstacles in the path of this trend that arc essentially a heritage of history.

The first of these is the remarkable resilience of the traditional hostility of whites towards black encroachment of what are regarded as white spheres of employment:

    although the statutory colour bar has been formally scrapped, nine out of ten times it is imposed by closed shop and apprenticeship agreements with white unions and these are still in force. The white unions have been staunch defenders of apartheid, using their muscle to preserve white supremacy and to block the advancement of Africans. [5] 

Nowhere can this be seen more vividly than in the mining industry, described by Freda Troup as the “inner sanctuary of the colour bar”. Recently the Mineworkers Union threatened industrial action if the government permitted blasting certificates to be issued to blacks. This, together with the threat of more whites defecting to the ultra right-wing Herstigte Nationale Party, which made spectacular progress in the 1981 elections, has forced the government to act more cautiously.

Another obstacle to the disintegration of the colour bar is black education. The Bantu Education Act of 1953 which brought all Bantu education under the control of central government, was defended by Verwoerd on the grounds that the mission schools through which many blacks received their education were unsympathetic to the government’s policies and that:

    By blindly producing pupils trained on a European model the vain hope was created among natives that they could occupy posts within the European community. This is what is meant by the creation of unhealthy ‘white collar ideals’ and the causation of frustration among the so called Educated Natives . . . There is no place for the Bantu in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour. [1] 

This discriminatory view of black education was reflected in the allocation of funds. In 1969-70 Bantu education received a mere R39m—a tenth of that spent on far fewer white pupils. Illiteracy is still high and the poor quality of education received by blacks in overcrowded schools lacking in facilities leaves many ill-equipped for work. According to a recent estimate, well over 100,000 jobs are unfilled because the necessary trained workers are not available.

In 1979 and 1980 spending on black education and training rose by 30 and 50 per cent respectively. Such large increases were made possible by the rocketing price of gold, which in the period 1970-80 meant a huge inflow of R3.9 billion into the government coffers. Although the price of gold has since slumped, the ending of South Africa’s apparent seclusion from the world recession has not been seen as an entirely unwelcome development:

   Nationalist politicians are looking to a recession to ease the skilled labour shortage, to reduce the differential of black wages (with the politically sensitive erosion of white differentials) and to stem the flow of urbanisation. [4]

Finally, what will be the consequences of a crumbling colour bar? One area where it is having an effect is black trade unionism, which has become a force to be reckoned with since its resurgence in the 1973 Durban strikes. Increasingly, a high proportion of strikes are being won, partly due to more effective organisation but also because of the penetration of black workers into semi-skilled and skilled work:

  In companies whose black workers are more skilled, unions are often in a stronger position. Companies like Ford in Port Elizabeth and Volkswagen in Uitenhague found during strikes that the option of mass dismissal and quick replacement was not open to them because skilled workers are in such short supply and that “we would eventually have had to hire our own people back”, as one company spokesman said. [6]

More fundamentally, the demise of the colour bar will serve to clarify the class structure in South Africa and to undermine the racial bigotry that traditionally divides its workers. Then shall they begin truly to make history and not be imprisoned by it.

REFERENCES:

[1] South Africa: An Historical Introduction. F. Troup.

[2] A History of South Africa. De Kiewiet.

[3] Class and Colour in South Africa 1850-1950. H.J. & R.F.. Simons.

[4] The Economist. 19 September 1981.

[5] City Limits. 12-18 March.

[6] New Statesman, 15 January 1982.

Robin Cox