Inqaba ya basebenzi Number 2 April 1981 - DISA

The answer is not to be found in
merely repeating the dust and blood
of late surprises such as 1976:
"where are (he guns?".
The answer is a clear and definite
need to turn towards the enormous
task of preparing—under workers'
leadership, with a« socialist programme—the
difficult and most
decisive period of the actual mass
armed uprising against the bosses'
state.
This cannot be prepared apart
from the movement of the masses.
Nor can armed actions by groups or
individuals be used to electrocute the
masses into struggle. The mass
armed struggle can only be successful
with the full and conscious
leadership of the workers' organisations,
ready for the greatest sacrifices.
Challenge
In the BCM, the challenge is the
strenuous struggle for the socialist
programme, as this can be the only
guide to the tasks and experiences of
the youth and the workers. The
impatience of the individual or of
frustrated heroes is no substitute for
the mass armed struggle leading to
the violent liberation of the people
from the bosses' chains of profit,
privilege, and wage slavery.
For the BCM leadership the
growth of Marxism amongst the
youth poses a number of questions.
The most central of these has been
whether the privileged and rabidly
racist white worker is in actual fact a
worker.
No doubt, the white worker Is the
immediate tool and the last resort of
white bosses' r^ile, of the bosses*
state.
Politically the white worker,
through generations of privilege and.
essentially, Afrikaner nationalism,
has been transformed into the whip
in the white bosses' hand. Who can
argue against this reality?
But, true as this is. the answer to
the task of the black workers'
movement in relation to the white
worker is not found in the useless
formula: "All blacks are workers
and the white worker is a capitalist".
The white workers are exploited
sellers of labour power, even though
their labour power Is exploited on
significantly better terms than that
of their black brothers and sisters.
The white worker question cannot
be answered in the BCM unless the
BCM is prepared to answer the
question of what the major tasks of
the mass revolution are. The fear of
answering the question of the white
worker is the fear of decisively
resolving that capitalism and the
state must be totally destroyed, and
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workers' democracy and socialism
triumphantly take its place.
Unlike the white bosses, the mass
movement of the black oppressed
has no interest in loading the guns of
capitalism. For the mass movement
the white worker is a section of the
whole working class which must be
wrenched out of the armoury of the
white bosses to weaken radically the
Firepower of white baasskap.
Only the overwhelming might and
power, In action, of the ORGA­
NISED black workers' movement
can achieve this.
The mass of the black workers and
youth have no doubts on this
question. Apartheid and the white
bosses' state must be torn up by the
roots.
Not answering the white worker
question and not being certain of
whether capitalism should be destroyed
opens up the mass movement
to the arch-capitalists like Oppenheimerand
Suzman and opportunist
black middle-class elements like Dr
Mollana and Bishop Desmond Tutu.
'Reforming' capitalism and apartheid
can only become a question
when the tasks of the mass workers'
movement are misunderstood.
Self-determination
Nationalism offers no solution on
its own. Rather it highlights the
necessity to destroy the foundations
which obstruct its true mission, i.e.
genuine national self-determination.
This can only be implemented when
the workers have destroyed the
apartheid state of the Oppenheimers
and have taken over the mines,
banks, factories, and farms.
The white worker cannot defend
all of these without defending also
the domination of the Botha's and
Oppenheimers. The task of the black
workers* movement is to destroy the
ability of the ruling class to use this
potential vicious tool of the white
worker against the total overthrow of
apartheid and capitalism by the
mass movement of the black
oppressed.
The danger in not answering these
questions raises the possibility that
ihc BCM will be bedevilled by the
apparent radicalism of black middle
class figures. The true interests of
the majority of the middle class can