socialism from below september 2012

7/31/2019 Socialism from Below September 2012

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Stop the tolls - make the bosses pay * No mo re bord er s * free educ at io n,

houses, and living wage for every living human, employed or unemployed,

wherever we were born * RE NATION ALIS E Eskom * REVE RSE priv atis atio n,

evictions, cutoffs and price increases

KEEP LEFT!KEEP LEFT!KEEP LEFT!KEEP LEFT!KEEP LEFT! MAGAZINEMAGAZINEMAGAZINEMAGAZINEMAGAZINE

Number 82 Sep/Oct 2012R1R1R1R1R1

Socialism

from belowAgainst capitalism and racism, for workers power

Active in the Democratic Left Front (DLF)

MINERS SHOW THE WAY,ACTION FROM BELOW WINS

MARIKANA!STRIKING AGAINST CAPITALISM


2/12

Stop the tolls - make the bosses pay * No mo re bord er s * free educ at io n,

houses, and living wage for every living human, employed or unemployed,

wherever we were born * RE NATION ALIS E Eskom * REVE RSE priv atis atio n,

evictions, cutoffs and price increases

R1R1R1R1R1

Socialism

from below

Front

MINERS SHOW THE WAY,ACTION FROM BELOW WINS

MARIKANA!STRIKING AGAINST CAPITALISM


3/12

SOCIALISM FROM BELOWSEP/OCT 20122

MARIKANA UPRISING AND MARX

By Keepleft

The Marikana uprising demonstrated

overnight the close relationship that the

government has with business, however

this is not only the case in this country

but right across the world. No business

people were shot at for not paying the

proper wage; rather those that went on

strike against bad wages saw 34 of their

fellow comrades killed.

People who looked to our own

government as having a pro poor and

working class bias must really be

shocked by the police actions at

Marikana. People are asking how could

this have happened, how could it be that

the police who are controlled by the

government stand so clearly on the sideof bosses in the conflict.

Yet we see this happening in all the

conflicts that are happening across the

world.

Karl Marx in his writings warned of

this, he argued that the state under

capitalism, no matter whether it came

out of a national liberation struggle or

not is designed to ensure the

continuation of capitalism as an

economic system.

Dictatorship of the Majority

The only way to put an end to thisstate of affairs was for workers and their

poor relatives to fight for and win a

completely different way of running a

country and the world at a large. He

argued that workers need to make

revolution and replace the existing order

with "The Dictatorship of the

Proletariat". Until they achieved this

they would always face the bullets of

the government protecting the interests

of the bosses.

Some say that this idea of Marx led

to dictatorships, they point to theSoviet Union, which might have assisted

the ANC with weapons, but back at

home oppressed and exploited people

by brute force. But the Soviet Union was

far from the image that Marx had of

socialism. For Marx the workers

through their own council organisations

had to run society. This was not the

case in Russia, Stalin had smashed all

of the democratic control from below

by 1928 and society was run by the

dictatorship of the Party. A party that

now acted in the interests of buildingcapitalism. Russia became a state

capitalist society.

Marx and his collaborator Engels in

fact spent their live defending and

fighting for democracy. They were known

by friend and foe alike as "extreme

democrats".

Marx started his political life in

Germany as the editor of a radical

democratic paper. State censorship andharassment drove him into poverty

stricken exile, first in France and then

in Britain.

He backed national revolts against

the Russian empire, supported the

struggle for Irish independence and

passionately defended the first workers

uprising in the world, the Paris

Commune of 1871.

It was during the short-lived

Commune that the "dictatorship of the

proletariat arose". All officials were

elected and paid the same rates as thepeople they represented and all were

instantly recallable by those who

elected them.

It was infinitely more democratic

than any of today's societies. The ANC

says that it is a legitimate democratic

government, this is true in comparison

to apartheid rule, and we now have one

person one vote: But we only vote every

five years and most positions that effect

our lives are not voted for, they are

appointed positions.

There are never votes on who controlsthe factories, or what should be

produced, how profits should be divided.

The police, army and judges are

unelected and unaccountable.

Democracy is not there for us in

most areas of our lives; we are

excluded in all places that might

undermine our ruler's domination.

Marx argued that this false

democracy should and could be

replaced by a socialist society in which

the majority of the population

democratically decide in all importantareas of life. His "Dictatorship of the

Proletariat" however has nothing to do

with Stalinism.

For Marx it was the machinery

needed to prevent the old bosses and

police chiefs trying to find a way back

to being in power. This layer has shown

time and again that they will stop at

nothing to restore their rule.

Each time workers have erupted in

fierce struggle in the years since the

Paris Commune they have put Marx's

words in practice. They have started toorganise their own councils of

democratic practice. The Marikana

strike committee had the seeds of a

long history of working class struggle

in it. It was fiercely democratic in its

discussions, report backs and actions

taken. It paid no homage to

bureaucratic positions. In this lies the

future kernel of the capability to take

power and build a new society.Why Revolution is Necessary

Marx became a socialist because

he became convinced it was only

through workers' struggle and revolution

that real; democracy could be achieved.

Marx was particularly contemptuous

of those who said society could be

changed using methods which ignored

a mass, democratic workers'

movement. "The emancipation of the

working class must be achieved by the

working class itself" he insisted time

and again. Marx often told how his heroin history was Spartacus, the leader of

the great slave rebellion against the

Roman Empire. That struggle was

defeated, but for Marx it symbolised the

spirit of revolt from below.

Marx understood that when workers

are struggling they are prey to all sorts

of horrible ruling class ideas like

sexism, racism, tribalism, xenophobia

and homophobia. "The prevailing ideas

in any epoch are the ideas of the ruling

class." But he also understood how

capitalism pushes workers to fight andhow, in struggle, they not only discover

their potential power but radically

change their ideas.

"Revolution is necessary, therefore,

not only because the ruling class

cannot be overthrown in any other way,

but also because the class over-

throwing it can only in a revolution

succeed in ridding itself of all the muck

of ages and become fitted to found a

new society anew."

Class Struggle is the key

Marx did study and use some of thefindings of the great Philosophies and

economists of the time, but he declared

"Philosophers have interpreted the

world; the point is to change it." Marx

was not neutral; he was an unashamed

partisan of the fight by ordinary people

to improve their lives.

He insisted that the key issue in any

society is the division into and conflict

between classes. "Freeman and slave,

patrician and plebeian, lord and serf,

guild master and journeyman, (in

Marikana, miner and mine owner) in aword oppressor and oppressed, stood

in constant opposition to one another,

carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden

now open fight." Continues on pg 3


4/12

SEP/OCT 2012 MAGAZINE OF KEEP LEFT! 3

Crisis of the profit system

The major part of Marx's work was

devoted to explaining how the capitalist

system works and how it is based on

exploitation and class struggle. He

showed how the rulers control all the

means of producing the necessities of

life, (the factories, farms and mines)

and how this means workers have no

real freedom- either they work or they

starve.

The struggle in this country won a

vote every five years but in no sense

did people win real freedom, the

freedom to decide how they work, what

they work at and the freedom to receive

all the benefits of their work.

Marx showed also that capitalism

was based on the anarchic competition

between bosses for profits. This fact

inevitably leads to repeated economic

crisis in which millions of people's lives

were ruined. The world has already this

century gone through many

recessions. At present the world

economy is in a massive crisis. At first

the government here said that we were

insulated from the latest one, but this

was false call, the time around 2009

saw the country shed up to a million

jobs.

Marx argued that under capitalism

the "accumulation of wealth" is matched

by the "accumulation of misery".

Nowhere is this more evident than inthe Platinum belt. A glance at the world

today shows exactly what he meant-

the contrast between the enormous

wealth modern industry produces, and

the famine, poverty and disease which

afflict the majority of the world's people.

Smashing our rulers' state

Marx did more than simply analyse

how capitalism worked. He pointed out

that capitalist society creates in the

working class a force than can end

class society and the misery it brings.

We have now over the past ten yearsseen one service delivery protest after

another involving many tens of

thousands of people. The government

has been able to bumble along through

it all, at times making reforms which

answer to some of the demands, at

other times nothing was given another

than long winded promises.

The Marikana uprising threw things

into complete turmoil, why did this have

such an effect? The answer is simple;

the rock drillers struck at the heart of

the system, their action brought thewhole of production to a halt. No rock

drilled, no platinum for the refinery, no

profits for the bosses, no money for

government.

Every action by people to fight for

better service delivery must be

applauded, but it is easy to see that

when workers strike at the heart of the

system the country really shakes.

President Zuma although playing

polite homage to the dead, found plenty

of time to bemoan the fact that the

government lost money, investors were

complaining, and the economy was

suffering. It is no wonder that the police

were so trigger happy; their role in

society is to protect the ability of the

bosses to make profit. Marikana

showed their true colours.Marx argued "What the bourgeoisie,

therefore, produces, above all, is its own

gravediggers." Workers have this

potential because capitalism depends

on their labour to provide its profits.

By seizing control of the factories,

offices, mines and industrial farms,

workers can break the power of the

rulers and reorganise society in the

interests of the majority of the

population. Workers power, though,

unlike other classes could only be

exercised collectively and thereforedemocratically.

You can divide land up amongst rural

small farmers, but you can't cut a

production line up and divide it between

the workers. Only by co-operation can

workers succeed. Alongside this, for

workers co-operation is fostered by the

daily conditions of work life and in the

battle to defend and improve their

conditions of life.

Today there are countless millions

more workers in the world than when

Marx was writing, so the chance nowfor winning a better society is so much

stronger than in his time.

Marx also argued that it would not

be enough to just take over the

VOICES OF THE MINEWORKERS:

MARIKANABy Botsang Mmope

The South African police and the army

killed more than 34 Lonmin workers,

injuring another 78, arresting 269 and

others (unrecorded number) have

disappeared. The workers were on

strike for a better wage of R12,500.00.

The following are some of the

conversations we had with the workers

and widows.

One woman said "The television is

hiding the truth about the killings, its

lying".

Another said 'My husband has

worked here for 27 years - waking up

at 3am and returning at 20:30pm. 'He

earns R3 000.00 a month. What clown

would earn so little and not protest?'

The third one said 'My brother (34)

has disappeared, we looked for him

...See page 4

factories; they would also have to break

the power of the state-the army, police,

judiciary and the state bureaucracy. The

state Marx pointed out was not some

neutral body standing above society;

rather it was a means of maintaining

the existing rulers in power.

Unless workers broke it and built theirown new organisations, the rulers would

use the might of the state to crush

them. This is why Marx argued that the

working class cannot simply lay hold

of the readymade state machinery and

wield it for their own purposes, but must

smash it.

In the Marikana uprising we see all

the elements of the arguments that

Marx made coming together. We must

salute the Marikana fighters, for as

Marx said, out of the struggle of workers

comes the power to once and for alltime bury exploitation, oppression and

build society anew.

The second transition that South

Africa needs to make, rests not on the

long winded hopes of the path of

"National Democratic Revolution" but

rather the power and courage, here and

now, that the workers of Marikana

showed us all, Their example can

smash the legacy of apartheid that still

hangs so heavily over our heads.


5/12


HISTORY OF PLATINUM MINES

By Gavin Capps

Gavin Capps looks at how platinum has

taken centre stage in South Africa'smining industry-and how workers have

paid the cost

Platinum mining is a big part of South

Africa's economy. South Africa holds

88 percent of the world's platinum

reserves and accounts for over three

quarters of global platinum production.

In the boom years between 1994 and

2009 the industry grew by 67 percent,

making it the single largest component

of the country's mining sector.

The period saw a huge wave of mine

expansion and investment, including atBritish-owned Lonmin, the owners of the

mine at the centre of the battle (see

below).

With gold in long-term decline

because of the difficulty of reaching the

remaining reserves, platinum has

become the pivot around which South

Africa's mining future turns.

The ANC government has identified

mining as central to its new resource-

based development strategy. It even

plans a "platinum valley" to concentrate

platinum-based manufacturing

industries.

However, its plans have been severely

hit by the global crisis and a dramatic

fall in the price of platinum over the past

year. The earlier scramble to expand

production has now led to a situation

of global over-supply.

Pressure

At the same time, rising wage

pressure, electricity and transport

costs are squeezing profits. This has

led some smaller producers such as

Aquar ius to temporarily close their

mines. All the big players are radically

cutting back on their investment plans.

Angl o Pl at in um -w hi ch al on e

accounts for 60 percent of world

platinum production-has been

particularly hard hit. It recorded a loss

of 20 million in first six months of

2012. For its part, Lonmin has cut its

planned spending for the next two years

from 285 million a year down to 160

million.

Now the South African ruling class

is panicked by militancy. It is

particularly scared by the growth of theAssociat io n of Mine work ers and

Construction Union (AMCU) and its

power to shut down production.

It is equally worried by the loss of

control by the established National

Union of Mineworkers (NUM).

The union has been central to

dampening and deflecting struggle since

it became deeply embedded with

management. Since 1994 it haseffectively worked for the government.

A mi li tant st ri ke at the Impa la

platinum mine in January set a pattern.

It lasted six weeks, cost Impala 180

million and stopped almost half of

national platinum output.

This strike resulted in a sudden

growth of the AMCU at other mines,

including Lonmin, which is terrifying the

bosses, the ANC and the NUM alike.

Lonrho's shameful hidden history

Lonmin is the renamed British

company Lonrho. The name change

hides a shameful history even for an

industry as brutal as mining. The firm

was originally set up in 1909 to grab

mining rights in what was then called

Rhodesia.

Even British Tory prime minister

Edward Heath called Lonrho's boss Tiny

Rowland "the unacceptable face of

capitalism" in 1973.

This was amid allegations of tax

avoidance, bribing African leaders and

breaking UN sanctions against the

racist regime in Rhodesia.

Golden tradition of workers' fight

Since gold was discovered in South

Africa in the 19th century, more than

80,000 miners have died in avoidable

accidents. But this brutality has gone

along with a long history of militancy.

The current National Union of

Mineworkers first built its strength from

strikes in the gold mines under the

apartheid regime in 1975. It faced

systematic repression.

In 1986 177 miners died in an

accident caused by cost-cutting. More

than 300,000 miners struck for a day.And in 1987 330,000 miners struck for

21 days, proving the power of the black

working class in South Africa.

everywhere and his home does not

even appear in the list of those who are

arrested'.

They told us about the shootings. 'All

we saw was a helicopter flying, we

heard shots then we saw men running

and cops picking up anyone running

around the streets'

Other told us about their immediate

practical problems. One said 'we have

no money for rent, food for our children.

We expect no income this month'.

Tshepo a mine worker said 'many

people had been killed at the small

Koppie and it had never been covered

by the media'. He emphasizes that

'many. many people were killed'.

After the shooting began, Tsheposaid he was among many miners who

ran toward the small koppie. The police

chased them and someone among

them said "let us lie down comrades,

they will not shoot us then."

'At that time, there were bullets

coming from a helicopter above them.

Tshepo then laid down. A number of

fellow strikers also laid down. He says

he watched Nyalas driving over the

living miners. Other miners ran to the

Koppies and 'that was where we wereshot by police and the army with

machine guns'.

One of the strike leaders said, "We

were being shot at as if we were

criminals. But we never stole from

anyone. All we wanted was our right to

a better life and better working

conditions.


6/12


WHAT IS CAPITALISM?

By Keepleft

Some supporters of the Marikana

strikers had skippers with the slogan

"Capitalism Sucks." They werepointing this slogan at the mine owners

and at the same time engaging with

workers over the need for a different

economic system than that in which

we live today.

"Know your enemy" is useful advice

for anyone engaged in a battle, but for

socialists it is absolutely essential.

Unless we know what we are up

against, we have no chance of winning.

And what we are up against is not just

a group of people - the racists, the

bosses, the ruling class etc - but awhole system: Capitalism.

Unfortunately a clear view of

capitalism is completely missing

among wide sections of the left and the

labour movement at present and this

confusion often leads to the most

serious political mistakes.

Failure to grasp what capitalism is,

means failure to realize what is

necessary to defeat it, and often leads

to the illusion that it has been defeated

when it has merely changed some of

its superficial features.For example there are those who

regard capitalism primarily as an

attitude of mind - a matter of personal

greed and selfishness.

This can lead either to the defeatist

view that capitalism is somehow an

expression of "human nature" which can

never be changed, or to the absurdly

complacent notion that it was enough

to replace Apartheid rulers with the

caring and concerned ANC.

Others do a least recognize that

capitalism is a definite economic

system. But they think of it primarily

as a national affair existing within the

boundaries of particular countries, so

that it can be overthrown within one

country while remaining intact in the

rest of the world.

We have been through an era when

many countries called themselves

socialist. Stalin had argued that it was

possible to build socialism in one

country. Following on many national

liberation movements painted them-

selves red and declared their countries

socialist. China today still calls itself

socialist, some say this is "really

existing socialism."

If you visit this country you will see

party officials walking around with red

badges but for the rest its business as

usual and with it exploitation as usual.

Capitalism certainly still rules.

However, the most seriousmisconception prevalent on the left is

the view that capitalism is defined

simply as a system of private ownership

of the means of production. This

definition is historically false because

it fails to distinguish capitalism from

feudalism and from the slave societies

of the ancient world in which there was

also private ownership.

It supports the right wing "revisionist"

view that some countries are no longer

really capitalist because they have

nationalized - that is, state-owned -industries.

It can lead to the idea that workersin nationalised industries should

moderate their struggles within these

supposed "islands of socialism" and it

discredits socialism by associating it

with the past Russia and Eastern

Europe where the system of state

ownership was run by undemocratic

Stalinist parties.

In fact capitalism is neither an

attitude of mind nor national, nor

primarily characterized by private

ownership. Rather it is an international

economic system which has developedfrom roughly the 16th century onwards

and whose main characteristic is that

it is dominated by the drive to

accumulate capital, or, to put it more

simply, to maximize profit.

The primacy of capital accumulation

derives from three fundamental facts:

The first is the separation of the

immediate producers ie the vast

majority of ordinary working people,

from any ownership or control of the

land, tools or machinery necessary for

production.

The second is the concentration of

all the major means of production in the

hands of a privileged minority.

And the third is the division of the

total means of production into

independent units (small or large,

private or state owned) which produce

in competition with each other.

The first of these facts forces theworking people to sell their ability to

work, their labour power, to the class

that does possess the means of

production. That is, it transforms them

into wage labourers, or proletarians, as

Marx called them.

The third fact forces the owners to

maximize capital accumulation, not out

of personal greed, but on pain of

extinction in the competitive battle.

This in turn forces the owners to exploit

the workers as ferociously as they

possibly can.This iron logic applies whether

governments call themselves

conservative or socialist, national

liberation movement or even Marxist-

Leninist, and whether the controllers of

the means of production are individual

owners, anonymous shareholders or

state bureaucrats.

It can be broken only when the mass

of the producers themselves take

possession and real control of the huge

industries and corporations that

constitute the major means ofproduction in the modern world.

To do this they must first take on

and defeat the state structures which

the capitalists have constructed for the

defence of their system.

In short, a clear understanding of

what capitalism is demonstrates

beyond doubt that it cannot be defeated

by means of parliamentary reform or

any kind of action from above.

There is no path to defeating

capitalism via the road of "deepening

the National Democratic Revolution," aspromised by our own Communist party.

The only path is by a workers'

revolution from below, ultimately on an

international scale.


7/12


MARIKANA WOMEN SOCIALISM

By Anita Khan

Marikana, Women and the Fight forSocialism

In the informal settlement, home to

many of the women and the men of

Marikana, people live in lopsided tin

shacks. There is no electricity,

sewerage runs freely between dwellings

and only those few who can afford a

standpipe have access to water. There

are no local schools. Unemployment

is rife and there are few job

opportunities for women in mining. The

majority of households are headed by

women and an estimated 67% ofhouseholds live on less than R1 600 a

month.

Difficult daily living conditions combine

with a strong gender bias in the mining

industry to compound the oppression

and exploitation of women in particular.

Of the approximately 10 percent of

mineworkers who are women, most are

regarded as supplementary rather than

core labour and stuck in the lowest paid

jobs, where conditions are dreadful and

reports of sexual harassment are high.

There have been incidents of miningjobs being traded for sex, sexual

harassment by both bosses and fellow

workers, and women workers feeling so

unprotected underground that they are

forced to carry small weapons to defend

themselves.

In Marikana, as in the case of other

mining communities, the state has

handed all social responsibility to

Lonmin, the third biggest platinum

producer in the world. The company has

completely neglected to provide even

basic services. The Lonmin mine is atremendous source of wealth for a few,

producing the platinum needed for

catalytic converters and for jewellery for

the rich. The boss of Lonmin earns in

excess of R55,000 per day off the backs

of the mineworkers. This in itself is a

travesty of justice for the men, women

and children living in these

communities.

With no state services and Lonmin

siphoning off national resources without

putting anything back into the

community, women often carry the

burden of supporting children, taking

care of male workers, gathering

firewood, water, cleaning, cooking and

all of this with little recognition or

payment. While popular ideas of gender

mean that women's central role is seen

as a domestic one and violence as anacceptable way of men maintaining

authority, the gender division is

deliberately reinforced by the mining

bosses who divide the workforce along

sexual lines, and the state that treats

women differently from men. By

undermining women in the workplace,

the social dominance of male workers

over women and women's financial

dependence and inferior status, all

combine to reinforce the inferiority of

women at community level. The division

of the sexes at the point of productionis a division that undermines the unity

of the working class and in extreme

cases, can cause women to see their

interests as different to those of male

workers.

Yet the signs are that this is not

happening in Marikana, where two

significant things have stood out about

the women. The first is that, despite

the loss of income during the strike,

women in Marikana were fully behind

the demand for R12,500, and that this

soon became synonymous with their

call for a better life for all. The other is

that women saw the importance of

using what little resources they had to

maintain the momentum of activism in

support of the strike and against the

trumped up charge of Common

Purpose, even though for they face adaily struggle for survival. In fact, the

level of involvement of women in the

struggle and their central role in activism

has the potential to really begin to shift

gender division in the community.

For Marxists, class society with all itsdifferent levels of oppression and

exploitation, only continues because

most workers most of the time accept

the ideology of the ruling class. They

may not like being exploited, but there

exists a consensus that this system

is the only alternative. In struggle

workers' consciousness can begin to

change very quickly, particularly if the

level of struggle and militancy is high.

When workers fight over their immediate

economic interests, they quickly come

into conflict with the state that acts toprotect the interests of capitalist rule.

Lonmin workers witnessed this most

painfully on the 16th August and have

been living under virtual state siege

since then. For Marxists it is through

struggles like these that workers begin

to change consciousness very quickly.

Capitalism forces us into struggle and

even if we begin with pro-capitalist

ideas, including sexist ideologies, the

struggle then forces us to question

these ideas.

Within days of the massacre of striking

Lonmin workers on 16th August,

women in Marikana gathered in

numbers and held a protest against the

police. They appeared time and time

again, in force, outside the court where

the bail application of the 270 arrested

miners who had survived the massacrewas taking place. While men and

women have been shot down,

wrongfully arrested, pushed around by


8/12


TRADE UNION ANDTHEIR

BUREACRACY

police and now forced back to work,

working class women in Marikana have

stood shoulder to shoulder with men,

and have tried to get their voices heard.

This is because women benefit when

the general level of class confidence

and militancy is high. Women workers

have everything to gain from fightingalongside male workers.

Since the massacre, the heavy police

presence in the area has put women

and children in the frontline of

harassment and police brutality. More

recently, women have been the targets

of police bullets. On 15th September,

after the government announced a

crackdown in Marikana, effectively

illegally banning gatherings and giving

police powers to fire on groups of

people, several woman activists were

shot by police. One of them, PaulinaMasutlho, has since died as a result of

police bullets.

While Marxists believe that male

domination is the result of the division

of society into classes that results in a

sexual division of labour, many

feminists see the root of women's

oppression in male power and have

displayed considerable hostility toward

Marxist ideas. As women during the

Lonmin dispute have shown, working

class women share the same material

world as men of their class and during

times of struggle, such women look to

class struggle to lay the basis for their

emancipation.

At the same time, the level of women's

oppression is deeply rooted in

workplace and community and we

cannot be complacent as socialists

about the work that needs to be done

around raising gender issues within the

context of struggle. The struggle for

socialism must also be a conscious

struggle to end the subordination of

women to men as well as the

exploitation of workers by employers.That means we have to participate in

the range of struggles that involve

women as women. The women's march

in Marikana is one example as is the

conscious effort to include women in

key roles in the Marikana Support

Campaign and to ensure that women,

as supporters of the strike and the

justice campaign, become leaders in

their own right. We have an opportunity

here to see some real shifts in the

consciousness of both men and women

around gender inequality. The struggleagainst women's oppression is not just

a women's struggle. Socialism cannot

be won for one half of the class at the

expense of the other. To organise

working class women we need men to

commit to fighting women's oppression.

Without this women are condemned to

fight alone. Unity between men and

women can be achieved by

acknowledging that oppression exists

and making the fight against it a majorpart of our strategy.

By Keepleft

There are many kinds of trade unions.

They change all the time. Their natureis determined by the conditions in

which they operate. Those that develop

in revolutionary situations tend to be

very radical and in conditions of

downturn tend to become conservative.

The relative strength of the external

and internal forces bearing upon the

union shifts and fluctuates. In certain

periods the pressure from below is of

overriding effect; in others the pressure

from the capitalists and the state

predominates.

This is true in South Africa, in which

the trade union movement, more

especially the emerging COSATU was

more radical in the late eighties than it

is today.

Today we see the fight for socialism,

which was prominent in the middle

eighties, being pushed back by notions

of "deepening the national democratic

revolution" or the path of the " second

transition." The passive road of urging

the government to take a greater

controlling role in the economy.

One can also be angered by the

NUM leadership's current direction,instead of applauding the victory at

Marikana, they bemoan the breakdown

in the negotiation process that

Marikana rock drillers shattered. They

are extremely worried by all the action

from below as this reduces their

importance in the battle between the

workers and the bosses.

In frustration however one may

argue, well that is the end of them, we

must build a new union movement,COSATU is down the drain, and its

reaction to Marikana was disastrous.

The reason for this are ties to the

tripartite alliance and with it the bosses.

This may well be true, but am sure

the COSATU trade union leadership will

welcome being left to run their ship

without socialist critics, revolutionaries

however cannot abandon this ship as

its still holds in its hands the majority

of unionised workers.

There is also no guarantee that

unions like AMCU that have done sowell at supporting the Marikana miner's

demands and should be defended for

this with all our hearts, will not in the

future get stuck in the mould that NUM

finds itself in today.

It is important that we understand

trade unions and the role of the trade

union bureaucracy in them to get a path

forward in answering this frustration.

The following article was written by

Lebohang Matete in 1993, then in

response to the drift by COSATU from

the heady days of anti- apartheid

struggle to the more stayed role of a

traditional trade union movement that

one may see in many other countries

around the world. What he said then

remains relevant today.

The Role of Unions.

Trade unions exist within the

capitalist system. Their task is to

defend workers' interests within this

network. The union exists to improve

the terms on which workers are

exploited, not to put an end to the

system.Unions tend to unite workers into

distinct groups and keep each group

apart from one another. Unions

themselves are divided, even when

different workers are under one

umbrella union.

For example, there is no way in which

the same negotiations with employers

can cover miners and teachers. Hence

there is no place for miners in a

teachers' union, or vice versa.

Why Bureaucracy?The emergence of the trade union

bureaucracy is rooted in the narrow

economistic and sectional nature of the


9/12


RESISTANCER A C I S MS L A V E R Y

By Joe Kelly

The Atlantic Middle Passage, the

journey across the ocean for captive

slaves, was perhaps the most harrowing

experience of their lives. The trauma

that the journey involved is chillingly

captured in mortality statistics forslaves, some 5 % in the early days of

the trade, the fifteenth century, rising

to between 11% and 15 % on Dutch

and English ships in the seventeenth

century.

The crew of slavers were essentially

brutal men who cared very little for the

lives and the conditions under which

their African captives were held.

However, there was an economic

calculation to be made -- excessive

cruelty and the inefficiency of transport

was a costly loss of purchased humanbodies.

Thus, by the eighteenth century, with

smaller crews and bigger ships,

journeys were made in which larger

numbers of slaves were transported

alive than ever before.

Beside the factor of increased size

and the greater efficiency of the ships

that sailed, the horrors of the journey

were often neutralized by the bonds of

kinship between slaves.

Captives often found ways toreconstruct their former lives and

culture as far as possible within the

constraints of the tight controls of the

ship's crew over them. Captain and

crew often believed that they could

prevent slaves from making contact with

each other and building communal or

interpersonal relationships on board.

Slave traders made sure to load their

ships with human cargos that they

believed were not in a position to

understand each other.

A crew member of the Royal African

Company vocalized this illusion when

he stated that captives from the

Senegambia region were from such

varying language backgrounds that

"there will be no more likelihood of their

succeeding in a plot, than of finishing

the Tower of Babel." However the fact

that West African captives came from

a linguistically rich zone does not mean

that captives could not understand each

other. Recent historians have shown

that the West African coastline was a

multilingual cultural zone that fostered

mutual understanding between people.The need to survive on board was

often so pressing a need that captives

were quick to pick up on English by

speaking with sailors. They also

developed ways of communicating with

crew and among themselves by signs

and gestures.

Captives also communicated through

a vibrant culture of drumming, dance,

drama, singing and storytelling. This

cultural flexibility and communicative

creativity among captives not only

allowed captives to find "kin, fellowvillagers, countrymen and identify which

cultural groups were on board" but also

facilitated their ability to plan shipboard

revolts and other forms of collective

resistance.

By using various means to

communicate with each other African

captives on slave ships maintained

aspects of their culture and attachment

to Africa as their home.

Despite the odds, the

communicative environment they were

able to establish on board helpedcaptives to survive the long and perilous

journey across the Atlantic Ocean.

Many, in fact, did not survive,

unions.

Because of the unevenness of

struggles in the working class, the

union bureaucracy plays a role in

mediating between capital and labour.

An important reason for this is that

trade unions struggles are, by their very

nature, partial struggles waged within

capitalism. This means that, at the endof the day, some agreement must be

reached between labour and capital.

A division of labour emerges between

the mass of workers and those (the

bureaucracy) who spend their time

bargaining with employers. Their role

reinforces them as authority figures

within the union movement.

They are increasingly removed from

the people they represent on the factory

floor, and from the immediate conflicts

with management, into the environment

of an office.Their wage ceases to depend on the

ups and downs of capitalist production.

They are not involved in working

overtime nor are they vulnerable to short

time or retrenchments. Because of

this, they develop an interest in

maintaining the organisation as a tool

for enhancing the class's ability to

struggle.

This means that lengthy strikes

begin to threaten the financial and

organisational stability on which the

union bureaucrat survives. As a result,

they come to see negotiations,

compromises and reconciliation

between capital and labour as the very

stuff of trade unionism.

Mediator.

The trade union bureaucracy

presents two faces. It balances

between the employers and workers.

At points, it holds back and controls

workers' struggle. But at the same time

it has a vital interest not to push the

collaboration with the employers to a

point where it makes the union

completely impotent.

The bureaucracy has to make sure

that it does not stray too far into the

bourgeois' camp, because otherwise

they will lose their base.

They will also have to check workers

who are active and rebellious by relying

on those who are more passive. They

hate pressure from both the workers and

from the employer who doesn't

recognize the union. Their interest is

to keep the union going.

The bureaucracy is not homogenous.Union officials are not the same; they

are divided between left and right. But

at the end of the day, all bureaucrats,

whether from the right or left, generally

seek to curb and control workers'

militancy. The divisions between them

are rendered secondary.

Challenge.

It may be difficult to push the

bureaucracy into action through

pressure from below. This challengeis, however, essential. Trade unions

are important organisations for uniting

workers to fight collectively.

But they embrace workers with

different sorts of ideas. And the masses

will only become consciously

revolutionary at times of revolution. The

task of the revolutionary is to work

within workers' organisations, including

trade unions and try to influence the

course of struggles by building people's

confidence to challenge not only the

bosses and government but theirleaders if they hold them back.

At the same time, revolutionaries

must maintain their organisational

independence; especially from the union

bureaucracy. It is only this independent

and revolutionary organisation, which

must be rooted in all workers'

organisations that can build the ability

for workers put an end to bureaucracy

and capitalism once and for all.


10/12


although in numerous instances where

lives were lost it was often out of choice.

Choosing death was often a statement

of captives' resistance to being sold as

property and as labour power for white

men.

Resistance occurred in the form of

silent unwillingness to co-operate and

ultimately suicide. The story of a small

child on board the ship, the Black Joke

in 1765, painfully illustrates the selfless

determination often involved with such

resistance.

As the story goes, the child would

neither take its mother's breast milk

nor the rice and palm oil that captives

were usually fed. In order to compel the

child to eat, Captain Thomas Marshall

beat it with a whip and tied a mango

log around its neck. He flogged the child

repeatedly, picked it up in his arms and

dropped it onto the deck. Within in an

hour, the child was dead.

Captain Marshall may well have been

a psychopath and an unimaginably

cruel man even among men of his dark

profession. Yet the relentlessness -

against murmurs of protest from

enchained men - with which he tried to

compel an unwilling baby to eat, hints

at the fact that any sign of resistance

among captives was a threat to the

power of the crew.

It was a threat moreover to the

prospective profits to be made on the

delivery of as many live and healthycaptives to the Americas as possible.

Even more menacing for slave ship

crews, unwillingness to eat could often

be coupled with a broader will to

rebellion among captives. As historian

of slave shipping, Marcus Rediker has

observed, "The hunger strike aboard the

Loyal George, as recalled by Silas Told,

led directly to an insurrection and, once

that failed, to mass suicide."

Suicide was not necessarily the

intended outcome of more risky acts

of resistance. Thus, when captivesjumped overboard close to an African

port - as dangerous as this was in

shark infested waterways - the intention

was to make it back to shore alive.

However, jumping overboard, beyond

the physical aspect of suicide, was

also a spiritual escape from the

prospect of a lifetime of enslavement.

It was a bid to return to one's home

country in a state, unburdened of

worldly cares.

Suicide, however, could also be a

directly insurrectionary act. This is

most evident in the case of mass

suicides involved in exploding a ship.

Such occurred on the New Britannia in

January 1775, in which 300 crew and

captives were killed, and on a Dutch

slave ship in 1785, where insurgent

captives, rather than face capture or

defeat, destroyed the ship in a

spectacular explosion that killed

everyone on board.

When uprisings among captives

occurred, these were not necessarily

spontaneous events without leadership

and planning. People communicated

with each other in the crowded lower

decks. They engaged sometimes in

reconstructing shared cultures and

kinship ties, but at other times they

conversed in small groups, with the

purpose of identifying common

grievances and possible solutions for

these.

Their carefully laid plans and

conspiracies often revealed the

leadership of men and women who hadpreviously been involved in battles on

African soil and thus had the courage,

discipline and combat skills to see an

insurrection through to the end. These

were some of the first fight backs in

the long history of the struggle against

racism.

E C O N O M I CF R E E D O M

We salute the 34 workers in Marikana

who died fighting their right to a better

life on the 16th August 2012. They,

along with the other workers who

survived them, have demonstrated the

power of ordinary people to begin to

shape their own destinies. The

workers bypassed the National Union

of Mineworkers (NUM), the largest

affiliate of COSATU, deeming it out of

touch with the needs of members andtoo closely linked to the interests of the

bosses. They headed directly to the

management offices on the 10th of

August or a 300% wage increase (from

R4000 to R12,500). Over a month later,

the workers agreed to a 22% wage

increase. Although far off from their

original demand, this reflects a drastic

increase nevertheless and will certainly

inspire workers elsewhere, as they have

at Implats, to continue to fight for better

wages.The struggle for higher wages being

advanced by the working class in places

like Marikana is the foundation for

building socialism whereby the means

of production is controlled by the

majority. The Marikana workers have

shown us that, when they are well

organised and determined, they can win

real gains from the capitalist class.

But, the struggle for socialism will

involve much more - including the

absolute destruction of the logic and

practice of capitalism which allowsCEO's to make R56,000/day, and rock-

drillers a mere R5000 per month as they

do in Lonmin. When the fruits of what

is produced are put towards the needs

and interests of the majority and our

planet, then the working class will be

in control of its own destiny. By

strengthening the power and

democratic practices of their own

autonomous worker's organizations, the

working class can begin to make

strides towards achieving genuine

economic freedom.

By Luke Sinwell

TRIBUTE TO COMRADEZAKES

Comrade Zakes Ngubene of ikageng

Ptchefstroom.

Our dear comrade Zakes passed away

recently after battling the effects of

illness.

He was let down by a society that

could not meet his medical needs.Zakes was a long-time member of

Keep Left and its predecessor socialist

worker organisation.

Zakes was a strong fighter for

socialism in his community, in Africa

and across the world:

He wrote: "We must begin to see

the class character of the African

society. It is the duty of socialists not

only to show the class divisions, but

also to unite the fragmented struggles

of the working class."

We will do so! Hamba Kahlecomrade Zakes!


11/12

SOCIALISM FROM BELOWSEP/OCT 201210KEEP LEFT! is a magazine for everyone who wants to fight capitalism. We want workers' power. GET INVOLVED!

KEEP [email protected]

Keep Left has weekly meetings. inJoburg 0823329874, Tsakane 0824019185, Potchefstroom 0787242530, and

Cape Town 0783180266.

MARIKANMARIKANMARIKANMARIKANMARIKANA SUPPORA SUPPORA SUPPORA SUPPORA SUPPORTTTTT TTTTTAKES OFFAKES OFFAKES OFFAKES OFFAKES OFF

The Marikana Support Campaign is a broad based non- sectarian campaign to fight to ensure justice is done and democracy

is defended, by supporting those workers killed maimed, arrested and charged. It was established shortly after the

massacre, it was initiated with the support of the Democratic Left Front and other progressive formations and then given

support by the church bodies, academics and human rights and public interest bodies. It was soon endorsed by AMCUand the federation it belongs to, the National Council of Trade Unions, and community organisations, particularly those

affected by the mining companies in the North West.

It continued to grow from strength during the long and bitter strike at Lonmin, battle that reinforced by other mine workers

who took up the demand for R12.500 as a living wage as their own. Given the consistent support for the strike and

campaign work in the community , the Marikana workers committee, the Women's group of Wonderkop and the Bapo

Tribal Authroity soon decided to join the campaign. The recently elected committee is now made up of all these groups and

has instrumental in ensuring that 20 families of slain miners, AMCU, the workers strike committee and those arrested are

legally represented during the Marikana Commission of Inquiry headed up by Judge Farlam.

One only needs to look at the terms of reference of this commission. set by the Presidency to see that they intend to

apportion a little bit of blame to each of those named as interested parties. These include SAPS, Lonmin, NUM, and

AMCU. Large sections of the press, accompanied by Alliance partners have been vociferous in their attacks on the

strikers, and AMCU, labelling the Lonmin strikers as ignorant tribalists, lumpen, suicidal, easily led by sangomas, and the

likes of Malema and opportunist militant trade unions hell bent on anarchy. Nothing could be further from the truth, rock

drillers simply decided they had they had enough of starvation wages, which condemns them to a life of misery.

The mining community of Marikana are humble people, disciplined and determined to better their lives, even if that meant

being dismissed and leaving the trade unions that they built and defended. For the 'crime' of going on strike, albeit

unprotected by law, they sat on the mountain, that sits on public land and demanded the management engage them on

their demands. The police responded by stating that 'they would end the strike' and the 16th would be D-day. The rest we

know, and what is now becoming clear IS that because one worker opened fire with a handgun, whilst being fired upon by

police using bird shot and rubber bullets, the order 5 seconds later to effectively shoot to kill was given, at least 34 were

killed many in the back or at point blank range. To add insult to injury the state launched, a crackdown towards the end of

the strike, ANC councillor Paulina Mashitilo was so severely injured by rubber bullets, she too died in hospital from her

injuries.

The campaign will stand steadfastly by all those miners who paid such a heavy price for daring to strike and those who died

for daring to support them. We are demanding the focus of this inquiry be on those who authored the massacre, and we fear

that was possibly a conspiracy between SAPS and Lonmin, possibly with support from some key government departments.

Only the truth will set us free. If you want to get involved right to our national campaign coordinator Nhlanhla Ndaba,

[email protected] - also join the facebook group Justice Now for Marikana Strikers for updates on our actions and

meetings.

By Rehad Desai


12/12


socialism from below september 2012

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