RE: The character of the ANC and its struggle for national liberation

[Azwell Banda <azwell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Comrade Dale,

I appreciate your quick response!! Good to know you, as unlike Patrick Bond, do 
not
doubt the revolutionary character of the struggle against apartheid racism.

As a citizen of a former colony, which went through a national democratic 
revolution,
I understand only too well how critical it is to distinguish between criticism 
of the
strategies and tactics of the leadership of any liberation movement and mass 
struggles
against oppression, any form of oppression.

It is also true that the history of decolonisation of the Third World has more 
than
enough evidence to prove that failure to advance the "national democratic 
struggle"
beyond "the mere change of the guard" so to speak, has resulted into untold 
misery and
gross betrayal of the aspirations of the broad democratic forces. After the 
collapse
of the USSR and other socialist experiments, we are all very wise about the
difficulties of constructing a socialist state in a world driven by private 
greed and
dominated by capital.

Hoisting a forced socialist agenda on the ANC, and then critiquing this 
"agenda" seems
to be a very good past time of many "left" comrades in this country, 
particularly
among those comrades who are not members of the ANC/SACP/COSATU Alliance. 
Dale's book,
quoted below, fails to escape this fascination with this strange fantasy.

Dale's book correctly notes that the ANC has never had a coherent strategic 
programme
grounded in socialist ideology. The book notes too, that parts of the ANC have 
put
forward a socialist vision.

In its 88 years of existence, it is true that over the years many elements of
socialism found their way into the ANC programme, without the articulation of a 
full
blown socialist programme. This, together with the ANC support base in former
socialist countries bred the perfectly normal (but not necessarily rational)
expectation that the ANC in government will be socialist.

Russell's position is, in my view, more realistic. It is possible to argue that 
a lot
more space was (and continues to be) available for the ANC government to 
respond to
the numerous problems of its mass constituency. Russell, however, would do us 
all a
lot of good by continuously illustrating what this space is.

Patrick Bond, in his effort to illustrate the neoliberal thrust of the ANC in
government is willing to make very unsubstantiated assertions - such as that 
Blacks
are now worse of (materially) than they were before 1994. But then Bond is the 
high
priest of "decomodification of basics" for blacks - a commendable position, but 
one
that always risks being attacked for institutionalising poverty. The experience 
of
racism for blacks was felt both as political and economic exploitation. 
Ignoring the
struggle for civil liberties for blacks, as have been advanced here since 1994 
is to
open oneself to all sorts of criticism.

Dale's books' profound contribution to the ongoing analysis of the performance 
of the
ANC, in my opinion, lies in the fact that he attempts a radical criticism of 
the ANC
at a time of its crowning glory - when very few intellectuals would dare to.

More latter, must run now......



-----Original Message-----
From:   Dale T. McKinley [SMTP:drdalet@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent:   Wednesday, March 08, 2000 8:06 PM
To:     Azwell Banda; CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:        The character of the ANC and its struggle for national 
liberation

Dear Comrades,

The debate around the character of the ANC and its national liberation struggle 
(and
by consequence a debate around the general revolutionary character of national
liberation struggles) is both necessary and crucial for all socialists. In his
correspondence with Charles Brown on the marxism list, Patrick Bond wrote:

>But was the struggle by the ANC (and Mandela) really "revolutionary"? A 
>controversial
>book by Dale Mckinley (The ANC: >A Political Biography, Pluto, 1997) makes a 
>case
>that -- as Dale puts it in a Mail and Guardian newspaper op-ed that >appeared 
>a week
>ago -- the current turn to neoliberalism is not inconsistent with the overall
>trajectory of bourgeois >nationalism:

Charles Brown responded (I have selected the pertinent parts)

>CB: From a Leninist perspective , the movement to overthrow a colonialist 
>regime such
>as the Apartheid regime, is >revolutionary IN ITS NATIONAL LIBERATION 
>DIMENSIONS. The
>fact that it does not have a definite or >predominantly a socialist aim does 
>not
>prevent it from being revolutionary. Nationalism in a colonialist context is
>>revolutionary. A national liberation movement has full revolutionary status 
>>in its
>own right. Furthermore, the particularly sharp >racism of apartheid, added a
>revolutionary anti-racist dimension to that struggle.

Subsequently, another comrade, Azwell Banda (a leading opposition politician and
socialist from Zambia) wrote to me as follows:

>My worry is that trashing the fight against racism (and gender oppression) 
>because
>these fights, or "revolutions" do not lead >directly to working class victory 
>over
>the bosses ignores the fact that capitalist oppression assumes many forms - and
>>therefore generates many forms of resistance and struggles. And Marxist
>revolutionaries must surely participate in legitimate >struggles against 
>capitalist
>oppression, even as their ultimate goal is to free the working class from the 
>tyranny
>of capital, >irrespective of its colour!! When you deligitimise the struggle 
>against
>apartheid racism, how do you hope to appeal to Black >workers, who suffered, 
>(and
>continue to suffer) both racial and capitalist exploitation and oppression? Was
>waging the >"national democratic revolution" reactionary in South Africa?


My response to all of the above is contained in my book (as mentioned by 
Patrick), but
I offer below, an excerpt from the introduction that, I believe, answers the 
core of
the questions posed and positions staked out as above. Let me also make one 
thing very
clear - I have never argued that the national liberation struggle in South 
Africa
was/is not revolutionary. But, this is a very different thing to arguing that 
the
ANC's strategic and tactical organisation and leadership of that struggle was/is
revolutionary. Conflating the heroic struggles of the mass of South African 
workers
and poor, against both apartheid and capitalism, with the ANC's 
leadership/conduct of
that struggle is to make the same tragic mistake that so many socialists made 
in both
their theoretical and practical approach to the revolutionary struggles waged 
in the
former USSR, in Ghana, in Nicaragua, in Zimbabwe (and there are other examples).
Similarly, to make a critical argument for the necessity of a rev!
olutionary anti-capitalist, socialist struggle (that is informed by its
anti-imperialism, anti-racism and anti-gender oppression) is in no way in 
opposition
to critical support for revolutionary national liberation struggles. 
Criticising the
totality of the ANC (its organisation, strategic decisions, tactical manouvres 
etc.)
throughout its history, should never be equated with an attempt to delegitimise 
the
struggle against apartheid racism. As we all should know from taking a long, 
critical
look at the last century, national liberation struggles are only revolutionary 
to the
extent that those who wage them (i.e. the masses of workers and poor) carry 
through
with implementing the basic foundations of a national liberation struggle -
i.e.fundamental changes in the social, economic and political relations formed 
under
colonialist/imperialist capitalist oppression and subjugation. In a
capitalist-dominated world, mere political changes of government (in the name of
nationalism) c!
an (and have proven to) only lead to replacing one class (albeit j
another, whatever their nationality, colour or ethnicity. Is this not the 
fundamental
lesson for all socialists of the past century?

FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO The ANC and the National Liberation Struggle: A 
Critical
Political Biography (Pluto Press, 1997)

As much as South Africa's liberation struggle has, historically, provided a 
wellspring
of inspiration to so many across the globe, there is the need to assess 
critically its
own historical character and direction. This study offers such a critique by 
analysing
the dialectic between the fluid objective (structural) conditions within which 
the ANC
(and the SACP) conducted their liberation struggle and the (subjective) choice 
of
strategy and tactics the organisations (with special focus on leadership) 
pursued.
I argue that this dialectic has, despite appearances to the contrary, 
undermined the
basis for any genuine realisation of the ANC's own stated goal of struggle - 
national
liberation for the transfer of power to the people. (The inclusion of the 
period after
the February 1990 unbanning of the ANC and its internal resuscitation will 
serve to
show the most immediate results of such a dialectic.)

            National liberation has always been the stated goal of the ANC and 
its
partner the SACP. However, there have been many times when this alliance 
(especially
after the incorporation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions - COSATU 
- in
1986) has put forward the ultimate goal of socialism for South Africa. Although 
this
strategic goal is associated more with the SACP and COSATU rather than with the 
ANC
itself, there has been such an overlap of membership that to disassociate 
completely
the goal of socialism from the ANC is a misdirected and convenient omission. 
This is
not to say that the ANC has ever had a coherent strategic programme grounded in
socialist ideology, but rather that large parts of the ANC's constituency have 
put
forward a socialist vision. Whether or not this has filtered through to the ANC
leadership and informed the strategy and tactics of the organisation is an 
entirely
different matter.

            As will be made clear the ideological orientation of the ANC, as 
expressed
through its leadership structures, has followed a pattern of what can be called
'incorporation.' Such a pattern represents strategic ideological choices by the 
ANC
rather than an undulating (and self-propelled) tactical terrain.

            To put it another way, the ANC-led struggle for the liberation of 
South
Africa has ignored fundamentally the very people in whose name that struggle was
conducted. Apart from the unique material and social character of the South 
African
situation and the undoubted moral authority of the anti-apartheid struggle 
(both of
which have historically contributed to a generally uncritical endorsement of 
the ANC),
the bottom line is that the ANC has failed its mass constituency. By providing a
critical historical analysis of the liberation struggle, this study serves to 
show the
basis and 'outcome' of such a failure.

     And yet, this study attempts to go beyond an analytical interpretation of 
the
'facts'. By revealing how the liberation movement has responded, both pro- and
re-actively, to the changing historical conditions under which its struggle has
laboured, a much clearer picture emerges of the connection between choices and
possibilities. Equally, such an approach reveals much about the ways in which
revolutionary leadership interprets and acts upon both the structural 
conditions that
contextualise the struggle they lead, and the role of agency which seeks to 
change
those conditions.

            Consequently the rich and varied activities of the rank-and-file are
highlighted as fundamentally integral to an understanding of both actual and 
potential
outcomes of struggle. In this way, analysis becomes more than just an 
intellectual
exercise in methodological construction and application of theory - it can 
hopefully
become both a basis for future, critically-informed intellectual investigation, 
and
empowering for those to whom it is directed.

            On a wider scale this study has relevancy to situations beyond the
confines of South Africa. Although the ANC's struggle possesses its own distinct
historical characteristics, most other liberation movements in the so-called 
third
world also conducted (and some still conduct) their struggles in the name of 
national
liberation for the people. And yet even a cursory analysis of the 
post-independence
politics of (victorious) movements reveals the mutual problematic - the 
'people' have
consistently been ignored if not oppressed in new and inventive ways.

            Any ongoing attempts to alter substantively the balance of forces in
favour of the 'people' will also have to deal with an international environment 
where
capitalism (and its free market politics) wreak havoc across the globe and 
where the
mass mobilisation necessary to effect genuinely transformative liberation no 
longer
(centrally) revolves around the barrel of a gun.

 Some Theoretical Considerations

The critical context of this work is grounded firmly within a classical
Marxist-Leninist framework. For Marx, it was through an analysis of the 
contradictory
relationship between the material productive forces of society and the 
consequent
productive relationships that the key to understanding revolutionary 'epochs' 
was to
be found. Thus,

In considering such revolutions it is necessary always to distinguish between 
the
material revolution in the economic conditions of production .. and the 
juridical,
political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic - in a word, ideological forms 
wherein
men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out (Marx, 1970, pp.20-21).

 In other words, the specific form and character of such a revolution 
(revolutionary
period) rests on the content of the activities of those involved in the 
revolution
(inclusive of all classes) within a particular, yet fluid, material context.

            Although Marx and Lenin both located modern revolutionary change 
within
the overall structure of capitalist relations, they constantly reiterated that 
the
active and conscious involvement of those who were oppressed would ultimately
determine the character and direction of change.[i]  Neither Marx nor Lenin 
viewed
revolution as following some sort of structurally determined course, but rather
located the 'self-activity', creativeness and 'outcome' of  revolution 
precisely in
the practice of those who make it - the oppressed. It is this recognition that 
allows
a creative analysis of the conditions within which revolutionary activity takes 
place,
encompassing both objective and subjective factors.

            Marx and Lenin also applied the concept of social revolution (as the
struggle to realise socialism) to the question of the struggle for national
liberation. For them the two were inseparable. Thus Lenin argued,

 The ... revolution will be an era of a whole series of battles ... on all 
economic
and political questions including national questions. It is the resolution of 
the sum
of conflicts stemming from all these unresolved issues that will produce a 
social
revolution ... all democratic demands (including) the self-determination of 
nations,
must be rounded off and united in the demand for revolutionary struggle against
capitalism (Lenin, 1947, p.64).

While this perspective incorporates both the differences and mutuality of 
national
liberation and socialism, the central argument was that there can be no 
meaningful
national liberation without a simultaneous struggle against what lies at the 
root of
national oppression - capitalism and imperialism. In short, national liberation
(influenced or driven by whatever demographic and/or culturally specfic 
factors) can
be little more than a political shift of the ruling class without a 
corresponding
transformation in social relations; without a class revolution.

            Despite the constant pronouncements of the 'death' of 
Marxist-Leninist
theory, its continued relevancy is grounded in three simple, yet fundamental, 
reasons:
first, the materialist basis of Marx and Lenin's analyses, by pointing to the 
material
foundations of all human interaction and conflict, remains central in our 
attempts to
understand and analyse social processes; second, since varying forms of 
capitalism
continue to represent (as they have for the past century) the dominant
'characteristic' of national and global political economy, a critically informed
Marxist-Leninist perspective allows a more wholistic analysis and investigation 
of
social struggles that take place;[ii] and last, as applied specifically to the 
history
and 'post-liberation' practice of national liberation movements, Marx and 
Lenin's
arguments concerning the political economy of imperialism and class have been 
borne
out in practice.[iii] This study will explore the extent to which the relevan!
cy of such theoretical and strategic perspectives apply in the case of South 
Africa's
national liberation struggle.

            Casting a critical global eye over the last decade a strong case 
can be
made that classical Marxist theories concerning capitalist society, social 
change, and
social conflict remain as relevant as ever. Despite recent events in the former 
USSR
and Eastern Europe - events that many see as proof of the bankruptcy of Marxism 
- we
only have to critically look at the recent past to reach a radically different
conclusion.

            While some things change, others just become more transparent. As 
has been
the case in South Africa for decades, the vast majority of humanity is either 
directly
or indirectly suffering under a capitalist-dominated political economy. To the 
extent
that there have existed, and continue to exist, variants of classic Western 
capitalist
society, so too will the sustainability of these 'systems' be dependent on basic
freedoms and material benefit for the vast majority.

            It would seem highly irrational to announce the timely 'death' of
classical Marxism, specifically as it applies to revolution, when all around 
our globe
the reality is one of capitalism's ravages and the social conflict to which 
this gives
birth. Herein lies the durability and utility of classical Marxist theory: it 
links
'the causes and consequences of revolution directly to the historical emergence 
and
transcendence of capitalism'.

            This does not mean that struggles for liberation are helpless 
hostages to
the dominant economic and political structure, just as they are not merely 
reducible
to the activity of individuals. Rather, they are 'conditioned by changing 
structural
economic conditions, state reforms and repression, international acts, imported 
ideas,
leadership debates, and efforts to learn from mistakes' (A. Marx, 1992, p.27). 
It is
this combination of structure and struggle, set within the historical context 
of the
ANC's liberation struggle, that informs this study.

            There is also a rich body of literature that focuses on imperialism 
as
central to any analysis of revolutionary activity and potential. Although this 
body of
theory is by no means homogenous in its approaches or prescriptions, a 
recognition and
analysis of imperialism is essential to a contemporary study of national 
liberation
struggle.

            With the continued transformation of global capitalism and endless
conflicts around class, nation and race it would only be intellectually prudent 
to
suspend the ongoing funeral arrangements for theories of imperialism. These 
theories
provide a conceptual apparatus for exploring the process of 
transnationalisation of
economic, political, ideological and military structures. By identifying the 
logic of
power and analysing the activities of those with the capacity to exercise that 
power
on a global scale, theories of imperialism have transcended time-specific 
application.

The Need for a Systematic Historical Critique

            The literature on the history of the ANC's struggle, much like the 
more
general theoretical works on revolution, offers limited analytical depth and
application. While the academic 'historiographies' cover, in some detail, the 
period
up until the mid-1980s, the focal point of all these analyses are on the 
internal
history of the ANC, the domestic conditions to which it responded, and how these
conditions affected the organisation's structure and programme. The limited 
timeframes
covered do not allow for an analysis of the full historical panorama of ANC 
politics.

            Similarly, studies carried out by ANC members and sympathisers 
follow the
same general line. As might be expected from such studies, there is a general 
lack of
both a critical political perspective and any serious theoretical grounding. It 
is
indicative of the gap that exists between practical versus written 
contributions that
these 'internal' studies represent the only available 'histories' of the ANC. 
The few
studies that have focused on the external environment within which the ANC has
operated do so from a very generalised (and often purely descriptive) 
perspective. As
a result, these studies are useful for short-term insights but do not offer a
systematic perspective of the ANC's externalised -cum-post 1990 struggle.

            Although there has been a great deal of heated debate centered 
around the
strategy and tactics of the ANC since its unbanning very little has been put in 
print
for widespread public consumption. That which has found its way into the public 
arena
has come from longtime critics of the ANC. While there have been many 
'internal' ANC
documents circulated for debate within the organisation, these have stayed 
within a
fairly small circle of intellectuals and activists. As a result, the larger ANC
membership, academics and activists, and the general public have only a vague 
idea
about the extent and character of the debate around ANC strategy and subsequent
policy.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[i]See in particular V.I. Lenin, 'What is to be Done?' and 'The Proletarian 
Revolution
and Kautsky the Renegade', as well as K. Marx, 'The Civil War in France', all 
in A
Handbook of Marxism (New York: International Publishers, 1935).

[ii]Marx and Lenin were pointing to the need for an all encompassing analysis. 
In
relation to this study then, any analysis of the effect of 'international 
factors'
must be applied not only to the state and internal social forces, but also to 
those
movements that act in the name of the oppressed. This then requires that the
activities/pressures of representatives of capital both international and 
domestic
should be specifically applied to the ANC.

[iii]Proof of this can clearly be seen in the majority of post-colonial 
'liberations'
in Africa (for example, Algeria, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Zimbabwe etc.).


______________________________
Dr. Dale T. McKinley
25 Webb Street
Yeoville, 2198
Johannesburg, South Africa
Email: <drdalet@xxxxxxxxxx>
Tel: (27 11) 648-5768
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