Workers' Liberty 3, September 1985. Breaking The Chains (South Africa)

The black working class

The potential, and the struggles, of South Africa's black working class, which rose in revolt in the years after 1973. Click here to download pdf .

Close to revolution

Successive waves of revolt have battered the apartheid regime. But the vast, sprawling black revolt needs a coherent leadership and strategy. Otherwise it could splutter out in heroic but uncoordinated rebellions. Click here to download pdf .

From diamonds to apartheid

A sketch of the economic and political history of South Africa from the start of the diamond industry to the introduction of apartheid. Click here to download pdf .

International solidarity: the case for direct trade-union links

How to build international solidarity with the fight against apartheid, and the case for direct links between trade unionists in South Africa and trade unionists in other countries - which the Communist Parties and their co-thinkers opposed on the pretext of "boycotting apartheid". Click here to download pdf . Click here to download pdf .

South Africa and Africa

The strategic interlinkings between South Africa and the rest of the continent. Click here to download pdf .

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 .

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