From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Baruch Hirson, Yours for the Union: Class and Community Struggles in South Africa 1930-1947

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discovery” the work of our forebears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
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Reviews

Baruch Hirson, Yours for the Union: Class and Community Struggles in South Africa 1930-1947, Zed, London 1990, pp.230, £9.95

Here is the book which will undoubtedly be the standard reference for its period for South African trade unions and their associated politics. The weaknesses of independent black and working class political organisations made the trade unions of pivotal importance during the whole of this time. Yet the trade unions themselves were often more glimpses of what might have been than anything else. The trade unions considered here were mostly short-lived, fissiparous, and individually all too frequently left hardly a trace. Despite all of this, however, this is a landmark book which is essential for any real understanding of the politics of South Africa then or subsequently.

The material is densely packed and immensely detailed, but justifiably so; perseverance will be rewarded. Nevertheless to the extent that this is not quite a full Making of the South African Working Class, some peripheral prior knowledge or reading would be useful. The period before 1930 is still sparsely covered and little known. A broad overview of the earliest phases of industrialisation would have been very helpful, as also would have been a review of the attempts of the early Communist Party and its forerunners to forge a unity in struggle between black and white workers. Decent alternative sources for either are few and hard to come by. Perhaps they need a volume in their own right, but in the meantime part of this essential supplement is available from Baruch Hirson himself in his articles in the journal Searchlight South Africa.

The 1928 Non-European Federation trade unions are dismissed in one sentence as “revolutionary unions ... in line with Profintern directives ... they paid little heed to the workers’ immediate needs” (p.40). But this hardly does justice to the attempts of the remarkable S.P. Bunting, the original and later shamefully treated CPSA leader, to circumvent the most damaging Moscow directives. Even despite this abrupt dismissal, however, it is still evident that the destruction of these unions by the CP purges of 1929-31 was a disaster. Genuine trade union militants of the highest calibre, Gana Makabeni to name but one, were permanently soured in their relations with white Socialists, and set off on courses of their own; many more were lost for ever. The scars and repercussions of this catastrophe far outweighed and outlived the tiny embryonic entities which had made up the Non-European Federation.

That the cudgels were taken up not just by those few black activists forceful and resourceful enough to go it alone, but also by the even tinier handful of South African Trotskyists should be of no surprise to the readers of this journal. Indeed it was the experience of the 1929-31 South African purges and their impact on the putative Non-European trade unions that was central to the creation of the Trotskyist nuclei in South Africa. One of these nuclei, a group in Johannesburg centred around ex-CPSA activists Ralph Lee and Murray Gow Purdy, made strenuous efforts to take up where the old Federation unions had left off. To struggle simultaneously against both the prevailing conditions in South Africa as a whole and the poison and suspicion engendered by the CPSA was, however, a superhuman task. This group, the only one of the small Trotskyist groups seriously to tackle the trade union question, effectively disintegrated as key members made their way to Britain in two waves in 1935 and 1937. Their story still remains to be told in full. There is some brief mention of them on page 41, but this misdates Lee’s departure to the earlier 1935 date. New material which could have given more flesh to these bones has come to light too late to have been included.

These are relatively small gripes blown up considerably, for what then follows in terms of the trade union developments of the later 1930s and 1940s is seminal. The later efforts of the lone Trotskyist Max Gordon, who inherited Lee’s Laundry Workers Union, can only command admiration. But the motives of the philanthropically funded Race Relations Institute in underwriting both his, and other non-confrontational trade union ventures will exercise minds. So too will all the ramifications of the gradually unfolded fact that the mine workers were amongst the last and least easily reached groups of workers to be unionised; secondary industry workers came first.

The rôle of the CPSA is one of the continual frustration of all that could have been. Individual members could play courageous and constructive rôles; but nothing any of these individuals could do could outweigh the original and continuing damage of the Stalinist subordination of the real interests of the workers to externally prescribed manoeuvrings. After the throttling of the earlier trade unions at birth, the courting of black nationalism was Stalinism’s next most enduring and problematical legacy. The destructive factionalism which this fostered in later township, anti-Pass Laws and trade union developments cannot help but be apparent from a study such as this.

Factionalism was probably inevitable, but the activities of the CPSA fostered it rather than combatted it. The resultant quagmire was never successfully coped with by the Trotskyists either; though their attempts to seek a correct relationship between black and white workers, black nationalism, and urban and rural struggle make fascinating and still relevant reading.

The finale of the book is with the great postwar struggles and revolts which culminated in the brutally suppressed and semi-insurrectionary 1946 miners’ strike. Again the Trotskyists were not absent. The Workers International League made highly significant efforts to promote both unity and a revolutionary perspective, and succeeded in establishing an important Progressive Trade Union Group. Baruch Hirson himself played an important rôle in these struggles alongside a now returned but rapidly fading Ralph Lee. Again, however, it is a glimpse of what might have been. The WIL had turned in on itself, suddenly overwhelmed by feelings of frustration and impotence, and had ceased to exist even before the last act in this saga, the 1946 miners’ strike, was played out.

The 1946 revolt was crushed and black trade unions subsequently banned. The “formation of trade unions and their conversion into a base for a working class movement” had only ever been seen as the “prime task” by Trotskyists, and not even by all of these. Other forces, including by no means least the CPSA, had seen to it that this task had not been realised. In 1946, as in 1930, a promising development had been snuffed out; the way was opened for the domination of very different forces in the 1950s. The 1946 strike had even seen some interventions by some of the more militant figures within the ANC, these were figures who lent support to the strike, but only “because it was part of the African’s struggle against white domination”; not because of any conception “of the African worker as central to the struggle” [my emphasis]. These figures were Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela. The workers of South Africa are still paying the price of the failures of the 1930s and 1940s, and may have to pay still further for the still current policies of these same figures and their SACP associates; this is not just a purely academic study.

Ian Hunter

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Party and Class( In South Africa)

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History Journal entry listed in the title.

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Party and Class( In South Africa)

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History Journal entry listed in the title.

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Raff Lee and the Pioneer Trotskyists of Johannesburg

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History Journal entry listed in the title.

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-The Trotskyist Groups in South Africa

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History Journal entry listed in the title.

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-The Trotskyists and the Trade Unions (In South Africa)

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History Journal entry listed in the title.

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-Resistance and Socialism in South Africa

Click on the headline to link to the Revolutionary History Journal entry listed in the title.

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discover” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Markin comment:

The articles from Revolutionary History are placed here as supplements to the comments that I made in my entry today From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-The Struggle In South Africa Today.

***A Man Of Africa- The Music Of Tony Bird

Click on title to link to Rounder Record promotional material on the "Sorry Africa" CD reviewed below. I could find nothing on YouTube of Tony Bird doing that title song, "Mango Time" or the incredible "Rift Valley" and my personal favorite "She Came From The Karoo". Maybe someone else will have more luck.

CD REVIEW

Sorry Africa, Tony Bird, Rounder Records, 1990

Blues and rural folk music, historically important on the American music scene, have always been in debt, acknowledged or not, to the sounds of Africa. Without getting into a treatise here on that subject if one is interested in the blues then it should be one's business as it was for a poet like Langston Hughes, for example, to dig into the African roots. The same quest, obviously, needs to be taken for those in who live in an increasing urbanized Africa today. Tony Bird, the artist under review here, is a man of Africa and takes that identity seriously. Moreover he is a white man of Africa. And to top that off he is a white man, one of the few unfortunately when it counted, who stood up against colonialism, neo-colonialism, white racism and apartheid. Hats off.

Somehow, someway Tony Bird through that experience has incorporated the language, the sound and, most importantly, the spirit of Africa in his music. That feat is put on display front and center in this nicely done, although all too short, CD that shows that he has assimilated those traditions. Starting from the lushly poetic, upbeat "Rift Valley" through to his signature jump tune "Mango Time" through the politically-driven title track "Sorry Africa" his sense of his African homeland shines through. He is not as successful when he slows down the beat and gets caught up with trying to deliver a message on a track like "Athlone Place" but that is merely a minor flaw in this well-produced CD by Rounder Records. By the way, Tony, for your efforts against colonialism and white racism there is no need to say sorry. The new Africa that is struggling, painfully, fitfully and with reverses to be `aborning' should recognize that.

Note: I first heard Tony Bird many years ago on an old vinyl record album entitled "Tony Bird" where I was mesmerized by his "Rift Valley" and more so by "She Came From The Karoo". The reason that I am reviewing this 1990 CD is that I recently attended a Tony Bird concert where he did a few of the songs from that old album. I make the same comment about that performance as I do about this CD. He does his Africa-centered songs as lustily and with the verve of twenty years ago, and still is as mesmerizing. His `message' songs, none of them included here, are more uneven. "New Jerusalem' is very powerful (if a little long) concerning the need for some kind of just settlement to the Palestinian question. However, "Mr. Meanie" a parable about the Bush years, "Aint't Nobody's Business Who You Love" about the varieties of possibilities inherent in the love experience and "Well Done, America", his Africa tribute to the election of Barack Obama as the first black American president were less so. Still, if you get a chance, he is well worth seeing when he hits his stride.

*VICTORY TO THE SOUTH AFRICAN PUBLIC WORKERS

Click on title to link to "Workers Vanguard" article on the aftermath of the South Africa Public Service Workers Strike.

COMMENTARY

BREAK WITH THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS-FOR A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM

In the 1990’s if there was any country in the world where the fight for socialism was placed on the immediate agenda, and had a fair chance of success, it was in South Africa. This at a time when virtually everyone in the West was gloating over the “death of communism”. The white-dominated apartheid regime was ripe for overthrow. It had been in important areas internationally isolated. The fight to free Nelson Mandela, the central figure in the black liberation struggle, had intensified. The black-centered opposition of the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the well-organized and militant trade unions united in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) had the capacity to make changes. The masses of black militants were subjectively in favor a socialist society, as they understood it. What happened? As has been the case more than a few times in history the revolutionary developments were derailed not in the least by the bourgeois program of the ANC, the class collaborationist, two stage theory of the Stalinist SACP and the capitulation of the trade union leadership. In any case, that long ago promise remains in the future. South Africa exhibited, and exhibits today, a classic case of what the Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky outlined as the theory of permanent revolution and the crisis of revolutionary leadership.

As is well known, the case of South African black (and mixed population) liberation was an international cause at least as far back as the 1960’s when the civil rights movement in the United States acted as a catalyst for extending the fight for equality on an international level. As is also well known this fight in South Africa was taken off the front burner once the democratic issues, not the class issues, were resolved in the 1990's. All of this brings us to the obvious situation today where the disappointed masses are fighting the so-called “progressive” ANC that has become in essence a ‘black front’ for the white capitalist regime that still dominates the economy. So much for past socialist rhetoric. Today the masses of South African public workers are in a struggle against that ANC government over what is seemingly a simple matter. They are looking for a 12 percent increase in their already inadequate wage package. The government is hedging at 6 percent. The masses of public workers in South Africa are grossly underpaid (as elsewhere). What this struggle means, in this the largest walkout against the government since apartheid was abolished, is that some class contradictions are now coming to the fore more clearly than in the past. More on this as the situation develops. BREAK WITH THE ANC! Victory to the South African Public Workers!