With the forces of the Smith regime engaged in a desperate attempt to smash the border guerilla bases and with revolt in South Africa still simmering, the forces of world imperialism face a severe crisis of their rule in southern Africa.
US imperialism can no longer guarantee for itself either a smooth transition to a Rhodesia ruled by an amenable black leadership, nor can it hope to patch up the cracks in the rickety apartheid regime by persuading Vorster to make concessions to the coloured and African population.
What are the factors that have produced the present explosive situation? We can isolate several key points: the success of the national liberation forces in the ex-Portuguese colonies, the gross economic and social instability inside the white-ruled states and their growing unsuitability for imperialism, and most important of all the growth of organisation, consciousness and confidence within the black and coloured populations in South Africa, manifested over the summer largely in the incredibly courageous demonstrations by the young people.
Mozambique and Angola do not stand as beacons of the socialist revolution. US imperialism is quite capable of adjusting to the new regimes as is shown by the deals made between major oil companies and the MPLA even while the war was still going on. But the victories of the MPLA and Frelimo did represent major blows to the preferred US strategy. The Pentagon is still smarting under its defeat and inability to intervene openly against the MPLA. Although the new rulers are not keen themselves to see the spreading over of the guerilla wars, their countries can be used as bases for SWAPO and ZIPA. At the same time the liberation of Angola and Mozambique serve as examples to those struggling against white rule in southern Africa and have given those forces tremendous confidence.
It is now commonly accepted, even by the bourgeois press, that Kissinger’s aim in attempting to stitch up a settlement in Rhodesia was to secure white-ruled South Africa for continued US investment. US corporations have over 1½ billion dollars invested in South Africa and realise one of the world’s highest rates of profit. Vast tracts of Zimbabwe are already in guerilla hands; the success of the liberation forces would not only cause huge (if temporary) problems for imperialism in Zimbabwe itself but would intensify the threat to white South Africa — ‘setting the continent alight’. A negotiated settlement, on the other hand, would prevent the growth of the struggle in the urban working class in Zimbabwe and allow the black leaders to police a smooth change-over. Hence the pressure of the US and Britain to achieve a negotiated settlement for Zimbabwe.
However, not only is the kind of settlement preferred by the US unlikely to occur, given the strength of the guerilla forces and the intransigence of the white Rhodesian Front, but the system in South Africa itself cannot be preserved so easily. The apartheid system has served imperialism well, but it is inherently unstable.
Why is South Africa so important to imperialism — in what way has it served its interests?
The massive investments are attracted by the vast mineral wealth, the fact that South Africa is the west’s largest gold producer and by the low wages paid to black workers. These investments have made South Africa the only advanced industrial country in Africa, producing 40% of the continent’s manufactured output.
Wages have been kept low, enabling the realisation of super profits, because the South African ruling class has tried to create a working class that does not have its roots or base in the towns. “Separate development” has its ideological justification in racial theories akin to Nazism, but its economic roots lie in the attempt to create a working class whose ‘homes’ are the Bantustans but whose work is in the rich industrial belt around Johannesburg. In 1973 more than 75% of the income of all Africans in the Bantustans was earned outside of their borders. The Transkei is simply a territory where this policy has been taken to its culminating point of ‘national self-determination’.
The policy has, in large part, been successful in preventing the development of a conscious leadership in the black working class. The contract labour system, the pass laws, the ability of the regime to incarcerate political leaders, all serve to suppress the political development of the working class and undermine continuity of leadership.
Not surprisingly, therefore, it was the youth that took the lead this summer. The apartheid system cannot help but create its own opposition. The spark was the attempt by the regime to further enforce its ‘Bantu-isation’ through ‘Bantu education’ — which meant the dropping of the use of English as the language of instruction. The revolt over language became one against the whole of ‘Bantu-isation’.
However, the students cannot hope to overturn apartheid on their own, and the best of their leaders already know this. The beginning of two essential developments have taken place, the building of unity between the African and coloured populations and the drawing into struggle of the black working class. The latter was demonstrated by the strike of more than ¾ million workers in the Johannesburg general strike of early August.
Despite the immense difficulties, there has been a significant growth in organisation amongst black workers since 1972. The end of that year saw the dockworkers’ strike, the following year the Natal strike of more than 60,000; in 1974 there were 374 recorded stoppages even though strikes are illegal except in very limited circumstances.
There were other reasons for raising wages in the period after the strike wave of ’73 and ’74. Another contradiction within apartheid is that the maintenance of low wages and the creation of the Bantustans means that the home market is ridiculously small; raising wages could expand it — but raising them in response to the struggle has given sections of the black working class increased confidence.
Detente in South Africa
The white rulers are caught in the same dilemma whichever way they turn. Shocked by the demonstrations of unity between black and coloured youth, the ruling class turned, initially, to a strategy long advanced by some of its ‘progressive’ sections. This was to give more ‘rights’ to the coloured population in the hope of giving them some interest in the maintenance of the state. However, the regime cannot easily impose such a solution, small reforms are not enough to stave off growing coloured consciousness while large ones threaten to upset the whole apple-cart. The entire process of reform opens up splits in the white ruling class.
Thus, despite its intense repressive machinery on the one hand and its attempts to give concessions on the other, the white regime in South Africa remains wracked by the internal contradictions of apartheid and increasingly unable to prevent the emergence of a new leadership.
In his external policy, however, Vorster still hopes to find some room for manoeuvre. The inadequacy of the home market, combined with the necessity to ensure stability in neighbouring states, led the South African government to negotiate with the black African states. In this policy the South African ruling class have a shared interest with US imperialism. Such internal and external pressures led Vorster to his meeting with Kaunda at Victoria Falls in August 1975, to develop a policy of detente and establish a common interest in the peaceful transition to black rule in Zimbabwe.
The black African leaders have their own reasons for dealing with white South Africa. Not only Kaunda and Nyerere, but also Neto and Machel, have a political interest in compromise and ‘stability’. It can bring temporary aid to their economies devastated and ravaged by imperialism. It can also provide political stability to the black leaders to hold out against the demands of the black liberation forces and the developing African working class. This is so for Neto and the MPLA as it is for Kaunda. Until a few months ago Machel’s Frelimo was denying arms to ZIPA and holding Mugabe in ‘protective custody’.
The options for Imperialism
At the moment, however, the African leaders cannot be seen by the African masses to be propping up Smith; nor can they drop their commitment to majority rule. The fact that the US has declared itself determined to end white domination opens up the possibility of a stitched-up deal with a section of the black leaders, but, at the same time, it clearly will give encouragement to the development of the armed struggle. Frelimo has now handed over border land, previously owned by the Portuguese, for guerilla bases and agricultural communes.
In such a situation the options for imperialism are narrowing rapidly. In order to prevent the involvement of larger sections of the Zimbabwean population in struggle, in order to prevent the growth of the strength of ZIPA, imperialism pins its hopes on a hurried deal with the black leaders. It pins its hopes on a deal with them before the struggle develops dimensions that imperialism and the black leaders cannot control. Already Nkomo, imperialism’s greatest hope, is incapable of forcing his will on the guerilla forces.
All sections of the Zimbabwean leadership have shown their willingness to compromise in Geneva. Imperialism, represented directly by Ivor Richards, is showing its desperate wish to strike a bargain with these leaders, a bargain to be struck before the guerilla forces can take both the white Rhodesians and western investments, by the throat.
Imperialism has treated with the black leaders of Africa. It has struck a deal with the MPLA leaders. It will seek to do a deal with the black Zimbabwe leaders. We should have no illusions that the nationalist leaders are spearheading a socialist revolution in southern Africa. Only the working class of southern Africa can lead and develop an alternative, socialist, path away from the conciliation and compromise of the black nationalist leaders.
But socialists must not shirk their duty to organise real support and solidarity with those struggling in southern Africa. A defeat for imperialism’s most direct and preferred strategy for exploitation in southern Africa narrows the options and possibilities of world imperialism. It gives new heart and encouragement to liberation forces everywhere. Imperialism will defend its bastion of South Africa at any price in repression and temporary political compromise. We must aid its downfall.
We must organise through the trade unions, through the Labour Party, for an end to all economic and military support for white South Africa. We must demand that the Labour government directly aid the liberation forces with money and arms to pursue their struggle. We must ensure the maximum unity of those in the British labour movement committed to such a campaign against all complicity of the Labour government in defending the interests of imperialism against the black population of Africa.
