SOUTH AFRICA DEBATE CONTINUED

LETTERS James Baker’s article (Newsletter, May 14). raises crucial questions on the nature and direction of the liberation struggle in South Africa. His contentions on the efficacy of the Pan-Africanists and ‘that only in the course of the struggle will specifically proletarian demands be presented’, indicate, I believe, an incorrect estimate of the tasks in a colonial or semi-colonial country. Who is to raise the demands, and how?

Implicitly James Baker submits that the Pan-Africanists do not have a Marxist leadership, but this is irrelevant. Nor, it would appear, would it appreciably alter his position if it were to be admitted that the Pan-Africanists are ideologically tied to the Liberal Party of South Africa.

A national movement in South Africa has, in this period, to raise the demand for the full franchise, redistribution of the land and its ownership by the peasantry, trade union rights, etc.; i.e. ‘democratic’ demands. But the leadership of a national movement must see the working-class movement as the spearhead of the struggle. The need for proletarian demands will arise in the course of the struggle; but if and how they are to be presented will depend on the leadership. And only a leadership equipped with a scientific method will be able to pose such demands and to lead the struggle for them in a correct fashion. Moreover, only such a leadership will recognize the fluidity of the present situation, and will see the need to win from the movement at large, members to be trained as cadre. In South Africa there is a growing black proletariat and there are Africans and other NonEuropeans hungry for Marxist literature. And there is a tradition which stems from the early days of the left opposition.

Temporary Exhaustion Spontaneous mass action, now ‘led’ by the African National Congress, now by the Pan-Africanists, will act as a solvent of present social relations in South Africa. But while ripening the conditions for revolution, this can also lead to abortive struggles which can temporarily exhaust the people. Moreover, the passion of the people can be abused by a leadership who are in the business in order to bargain for concessions. National movements led by non-Marxists in India and Ghana have guided the countries back into the octopus grip of imperialism.

The matter of ‘setting up a provisional government in Britain, Ghana and elsewhere . . .’ puzzles me. A government consisting of whom? But, what is more important, why?

Benita Teper.