South Africa

South African capitalism today

Documenting the huge economic inequalities and the political oppression of the apartheid regime. Click here to download pdf .

Socialism and the struggle for freedom

Discussion of the "Freedom Charter" and the strategy of the ANC; polemic against both the "two-stage" strategy of the ANC and Communist Party, and the "only-socialist-revolution-can-end-apartheid" scheme of some leftists. Click here to download pdf .

The African National Congress and its strategy

The African National Congress, within which the Communist Party of South Africa is influential, has a long history, a substantial apparatus, and well-established international links. An examination of its record around three important moments - the African miners' strike of 1946, the mass strikes after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, and the ANC's turn to armed struggle in 1961 - shows, however, why there is good cause for militant black workers to turn away from the leadership of the ANC. Click here to download pdf .

Trotsky on "a black republic"

Leon Trotsky discusses the "two-stage" strategy for South Africa, and defends the call for a "black republic". Click here to download pdf .

The white working class

"Although some of the South African whites' attitudes are paralleled by Israeli Jews and the Northern Ireland Protestants, as a community they are not similar. The South African whites are not a more or less complete and autonomous community, embracing all classes, but a capitalist class, a middle class, and a thin labour aristocracy, all resting on top of a black working class. There can be no justice in South Africa unless the whites accept equality. And the blacks can't, won't, and should not be asked to wait until the whites accept equality voluntarily rather than having it forced on them"...

Women in revolt

The triple burden of black and Asian women in apartheid South Africa, and the struggle for liberation. Click here to download pdf .

South Africa: The Freedom Charter - myth and reality

Contesting the mystique of the ANC's Freedom Charter, as allegedly "created by the people" rather than a particular political trend, and defending the campaign for a Workers' Charter in South Africa. Click here to download pdf.

Survey: student militancy, South Africa, the "Perdition" affair

Simon Pottinger on 'A wave of student militancy': From France to China to Spain to Mexico to Kazakhstan, big student mobilisations over the system of university entrance (France, Spain), democracy and press freedom (China, Kazakhstan), and fee rises (Mexico). Tom Rigby on South Africa: Trade union strength roughly doubling in South Africa, over the two and a half years from September 1984 to early 1987. John O'Mahony on "Perdition": "I think Jim Allen's play Perdition, about the massacre of the Jews of Hungary in 1944, should be produced. Those Jews who have campaigned against its being...

Survey: South Africa; the Pill; poll tax; France's FN; Labour Party; industrial; Israel/Palestine; Northern Ireland

Click here to download pdf. Survey section: Historic compromise in South Africa? The 30th anniversary of the introduction of the contraceptive pill Poll tax: 12 million defy the law France's Front National Labour: towards a one-faction party? A tale of two industrial struggles: ambulance workers, and engineering Israel/Palestine: influx and intifada Northern Ireland: Ulster says maybe.

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