m - DISA

movement (In collaboration with the Broederbond),
dominated its various organisations, and was the
prime economic beneficiary of the alliance. Largely
as a result of HP policy after 1946, the growth of
Senlem aftar 1946 wee nothing short of remarkable.
By i960 the funds uodar its control had been
increased by over 1 500)1. The real eignificance
of thie growth lies in the fact that by 1960, long
before any other Afrikaner financial undertaking
(with the possible exception of the Rembrandt
Corporation) eas in a similar position, Senlem's
total aconoailc dependence on an alliance elth
farmers and workers as the eejor source of its capital
had been broken. Freed from the need for an economic
alliance elth agriculture. Senlaa began to pursue
Independent (and previously unthinkable) economic and
political policies. After 1960, it moved into ever
closer cooperation eith the Anglo-American Corporation
in a number of undertakings, culminating in a Joint
take over of the General etining and Finance Corporation
- thua gaining the first ever entry of an Afrikaner
company into the 'mammy territory' of mining finance.
This cooperation eith the arch epltoee of
'Hoggenheimer' aroused bitter condemnation of Sanlam
within Afrikaner nationalist ranks. ZS
The differentiel development of Afrikaner
finance after 1905 la yet another area requiring
much further research. Yet the basic point is
clear. By 1960 the process of capital accumulation
was rapidly loosening the economic alliance between
Cepe finence capital and agriculture. This vital
shift in the alignment of forces organised by the
Cape NP, had algnificant effects for the politics of
the Cape party. Sanlem retained its overwhelming
dominance of the Cepe nP, which began to engage in
increasingly open conflict with the other provincial
parties on precisely the basic questions of the
constitution of the Afrikaner volk and the nature of
ff ita B interests. * In the period 1960-66, the Cepe
NP eas regarded in nationalist circlee ee 'the
mm
opposition party'. This conflict then raged In
all the organisations of Afrikaner nationalism,
from business groupings^ the Broederbond (itself used
;as a counter force to the Cepe party), churches,
Parliament and cabinet.
Here the vital question of the relationship
between party, government and state must be posed.
The yeers immediately before the W> came to power had
seen an intense end open politic!eatIon of the state
bureaucrecy in South Africa. Political struggles
within the capitalist class, and between it and '
specific strata of the petty bourgaolsle and whita
workers were fought out so vehemently within the
civil service that policy Initiatives of the then-
ruling united Party were effectively paralysed.
The Afrikaner Broederbond MS particularly ective in
this process, commonly referred to as the nationalist
'white-anting• of the government. 27 Immediately on
assuming office in 1MB, as Q matter of priority, the
NP government began a systematic purge of the senior
ranks of the civil eervice end Installed pro-
Nationelist eleaante. These purges were carried out
by individual Ministers, and Involved a protracted
process of struggla within the state apperatuaee. In
the process, particular government ministries became
powerful political bases for e number of politicians.
This should be seen neither in purely subjective nor
instrumentalist terms. Rather, it implies thet
through the struggle to transform the state apparatus*
the state apparatus Itself become a site of ongoing
conflict between the cless forces organised in the
NP. Specific ministries were identified with
specific •regionalist' political lines, end the
regionalist struggles were fought out pertielly
between particular state Institutions.
This led to significant anomalies. Under the
Premiership of Or OF Halan, I9a8-5d, a disjuncture
developed between the relative regionalist etrengths
in the perty on the one hand, and the government on
the other. By virtue of the results of the 1948
and 1953 election results, the Transvaal party had
finally emerged as the most powerful of the
provlnciel NPs. Yet, as simultaneously Prime Minister
and leader of the. Cape HP, leslan uastf his prerogatlvea
of appointment in en ettempt to shore up Cape
dominance in .the government, His first Cab3.net
1 * page G
contained but two Transvaal appointments.in
relatively insignificant portfolios, whilst 7
Cape attnlatara (in a Cabinet of 12) virtually
monopolised the Important poets. Thus, under Malan,
particularly powerful Ministries became associated
with the 'Cape line* (especially Finance and
Transport) whilst the Transvaal struggle against
the Cape 'moderation 11 was waged largely from the
base of Strljdom and Verwoerd in the Uinistrlss
of Lends end Netive Affaire.
Thuefar it has been argued that the e
separate NPs rest on different social bases and
hence have institutionalised significantly varied
politics. An lmportent feature of Nationalist
politics lies In the ongoing struggle between these
various class forces, a struggle institutloneUsed
within the verlous parties, and taking the fora of
often bitter 'regionalist 1 conflict between them.
This conflict ie largely expressed in ideological
terms aa deep differences over what constitutes
the Afrikaner volk end 'Ite* intereete. It la waged
not only through the ftP itself, but the numerous
organisations which collectivly comprise organised
Afrikaner nationalism.
At a second level, this struggla is over whet
types of policies should be pursued by the NP as the
governing party. The fact that the NP was also the
governing perty gave e particular character to the
ways in which these conflicts are fought out within
the state apparatus. I do not aant to be misunderetood
here. This is not to reduce the state as a site of
class struggle to a simple conflict between the
various tendencies in Afrikaner nationalism.
These nmmtt to be situated in their erticulatlon with
the wider class struggles end contradictions within
and between the state apparatuses. But here I am
particularly concerned eith the question of how the
effects of the contradictions within Afrikaner
nationalise themselves helped structure the particular
form of the criais of the South African atate in the
mid - late 1970a. Thus, as conflict between organised
class forces ovsr state pollcyt these Afrikaner
nationalist politics teke piece at three levele