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THE RISE OF AFRIKANER CAPITALISMA Study Document by M . Dickson to read and file for reference.

O N E of the most interesting features of the development of South African capitalism during the last decade has been the enormous growth of Afrikaner business enterprises.

No longer is big business the monopoly of the English-speaking section. The results of this process will be of far-reaching significance for the development of the Afrikaner nation. To­day, the big capitalists and financiers form a distinct class within that nation. This class is pretending to guide the destinies of all sections Of the Afrikaner nation, while in reality it pursues only its own narrow economic and political interests.The days are gone when the Nationalist Party was almost entirely

devoted to upholding certain fanning interests. For some time that party has been essentially a tool used by a group of Afrikaner finance capitalists to further their own ends.

Let us take a closer look at Afri­kaans big business so that we may substantiate these claims. The eco­nomic ^ w e r of Afrikaner finance capital is concentrated in the great financial institutions, Volkskas and SANLAM, and in a number of in­vestment companies all tied to a greater or lesser extent to these two giants. The power of these invest­ment companies is surprisingly ex­tensive, and the rate at which their assets have increased since the war can only be described as breath­taking.

SANLAM—33 MILLIONThe assets of SANLAM, for ex­

ample, increased from a little over £9 million in 1945 to just under £33 million in 1953. The Nationalist Government has not been bad for business! (Eric Louw is a former director of SANLAM.) One of SANLAM’s most important subsid­iaries, the Bonus Investment Co., increased its assets six-fold in the s’X years just after the war. In 1949 Bonus had interests in 39 different companies, but in 1952 its interests had extended to a total of 72 differ­ent companies. No later figures are available but it is clear that at this rate of increase the number of companies tied up with Bonus In­vestments must exceed 100 by now.

a f ^ y a few of the enterprises con­trolled by Bonus can be mentioned here, they include Nasionale Boek- handel, Rembrandt Tobacco Co., Evelyn Haddon & Co., Jonker Bros., African Electric, Alexander Ding­wall Engineering Co., Prima Iron and Steel Foundry, etc.

Another subsidiary of the SAN­LAM financial group is Nasionale Pers, publishers of Die Burger and of magazines and books. On its board of directors the big financiers like P. A. Malan and C. R. Louw rub shoulders with Senator C. A. van Niekerk and police minister C. R. Swart.

SANLAM and Volkskas have collaborated in the formation of another important investment com­pany, Federal Volksbeleggings. When one remembers that this was actually the first Afrikaner finance company ever formed, and that its history goes back only to 1940, one gets some idea of the extraordinarily rapid growth of Afrikaner finance capital. Actually, the capital of Federale Volksbeleggings increased no less than fifteenfold in twelve years!

COMPARE WITH ANGLO- AMERICAN

There are a number of important financial subsidiaries of the SAN­LAM group. Among these *are SANTAM, African Homes Trust, Credit Corporation of S.A. and Saambou. The assets of the last- named increased from a mere £100,000 odd in 1944 to almost £8 million in 1953. The total capital assets of the SANLAM group are today well over £50 million, that is to say, of the same order as those of Anglo-American.

The second great concentration of Afrikaner capital in the country is to be found in the coffers of Volks­kas. The Volkskas bank itself has seen a truly meteoric rise in its for­tunes in the last ten years. Between 1944 and 1953 it increased its assets from less than £7 million to about £45 million.

Around Volkskas has grown up a maze of financial and investment

companies. Much of the capital of this group is also tied up in real estate speculations in various parts of the Transvaal.

Among the most important financiers in this group are W. Buhr- mann, C. C. Kriel, J. H. Greybe, M.P., and Dr. A. Hertzog, M.P. It is through the latter that the group exercises control over one of its most important subsidiaries, Afri- kaanse Pers, publishers of Vader- land and Brandwag. The close tie with the Nationalist Party is also worthy of note.

Another group of Transvaal Afri­kaner financiers operate through the Van Riebeeck Finance Corporation, which has strong links with the Kopersbond. Its interests include Uniewinkels, van Riebeck Ceramic Industries, S.A. Steelware Manufac­turing Co., Voorbrand Tobacco Co., W. B. Pickles, Stolp Bros., Dag- breekpers. Die Onafhanklike Pers van S.A., and a number of other enterprises. The chairman of this group is Prof. L. J. du Plessis, and one of its most important members is Dr. N. Diederichs, M.P., one of the backroom boys of the Nationalist Party.

M INING INTERESTSDr. Diederichs is also a director

of the Small Mines and General Investment Co., an Afrikaner finan­cial group which is actuallv trvine to muscle in on that stronghold of British capital, the gold mining industry. So far, their control ex­tends over a number of the small mines like Primrose, Jumpers, Bal­moral, Driefontein, Lancaster, May- fair, Stanhope and Old Heriot. The chairman of this group is W. B. Boshoff, who also has interests in Voortrekkerpers, publishers of Die Transvaler.

Among other Afrikaner groups worthy of note we must first of all mention the group of Free State capitalists in control of SASBANK, of which Dr. van Rhyn, the minis­ter, is a former director. The assets of this group exceed £3 million. Further, there is the Sentrakas group, partly linked with the Stellenbosch District Bank, which is mainly in­terested in agricultural finance. Another financial group is Aurochs Investments, of which Senator J. H. B. Reitz is a director. Afrikaner influence is also strong in the S.A. Bank of Athens. In a more special­ised line of business we have the mammoth K.\V.V., the Union Wine and Spirit Corporation which con­

trols a chain of wholesale liquor businesses throughout the country, and finally we have the vast fruit canning and jam making interests. All these are definitely Big Business.

FOREIGN LINKSSome of the financial groups under

discussion have tried to strengthen their economic position by forming links with capital froni the Euro­pean continent, German, Swiss, Bel­gian, Italian, etc. We will quote only two examples of this. The Bonus Investment group, mentioned earlier, is a shareholder in the well- known Belgian Amato interests, which include not only very large textile plants in the Union and Rho­desia, but also such enterprises as Rhodesian Jute Industries, Transvaal Paint & Chemical Industries, Crystal Soap & Oil Co., Natal Oil Products, etc. The second example worth mentioning in this connection is the Dominion Iron and Steel Corpora­tion whose works are situated in the Eastern Transvaal. This company represents in fact a fusion of Afri­kaner and German capital; it may be regarded as the South African subsidiary of Krupps which is supplying the capital equipment and technical know-how. The first Krupp furnace was delivered in 1952 and production started last year. G. F. H. Bekker, Nat. M.P. for Cradock, is one of the directors. The company is expecting to pay a 20% dividend a year on ordinary shares.

The big e.stablishcd financial in­stitutions of the country have been^ forced to recognise Afrikaner capi­tal’s rise to a place in the sun. The latter’s representatives now sit on the boards of the biggest financial institutions; for example, Havenga is now a director of Barclay’s Bank, and Sauer, the Nationalist minister, has for some time been a director of the Old Mutual.

IDEOLOGICAL WEAPONSTurning to the reasons for the

extraordinarily rapid rise of Afri­kaner finance capital we must pay some attention to the role that Afri­kaner nationalism has played in that connection. It is a well - known generalization that every rising capitalist class makes use of nation­alistic doctrines to aid it in captur­ing an internal market for itself. Afrikaner Nationalism provides a particularly clear illustration of this principle. From the first, the rising Afrikaner capitalist recognized that as a late arrival on the economic scene he could only hope to succeed against his more powerful competi­tors by making use of political and ideological weapons for economic purposes.

ECONOM IC CO -ORD INATIO N “FROM PEK ING TO BERL IN ”

LONDON.nriH E Socialist countries of the world have drawn up a giant plan

to co-ordinate their economic systems, according to the East German paper Neues Deutschland.The Warsaw conference in May

decided to co-ordinate the basic tar­gets of the economic plans of the Soviet Union. People’s China, the East European People’s Democ­racies and the German Democratic Republic.

Addressing a meeting of the cen­tral committee of the German Socialist Unity Party, Deputy Pre­mier Walter Ulbricht said — “For the first time in the history of

humanity” the socialist and demo­cratic countries had decided “to co­ordinate, under the leadership of the Soviet Union, their great per­spective plans for the huge area from Peking to Ikrlin .”

The political consultative com­mittee set up at Warsaw would en­able the e i ^ t countries to co­ordinate their policy and efforts “toward the solution of major pro­blems,’’ he said.

That is why this class has always attached so much importance to its monopolistic control of the Afri­kaans language press. This press has long been under the direct control of the big financial groups, and has faithfully represented their interests and their ideology.

By their control over the publica­tion of Afrikaans books, by their endowment of various cultural or­ganizations, and by their influence among the intellectuals the Afri­kaner capitalists have established a virtual stranglehold on the cultural expression of the Afrikaner people. One result of this has been the extreme degeneration of Afrikaans literature in recent years.

And how well our financial groups have known how to cash in on the nationalistic sentiments of the ordi­nary Afrikaner! They have induced him to insure only with Afrikaner insurance companies, to bank only with Afrikaner banks, to build his home through an Afrikaner building society, to patronise Afrikaner shops, as far as possible. The savings of the poorer sections of the Afrikaner people have played a big role in the financial manipulations of the con­trolling financiers. Afrikaner Nation­alism of the modern variety has given the ordinary Afrikaner the privilege of being exploited by Afrikaans-speaking financiers in­stead of only English-speaking ones.

The capital invested by Afrikaner Big Business in Afrikaner National­

ism, both in its cultural and in its political form, must have been tremendous. But the truly breath­taking rise in the fortunes of these financial groups, which we noted above, are evidence of the fact that this investment has proved much more profitable than an ordinary stock exchange speculation.

CONTEMPT FOR DEMOCRACYAnother point to note is that the

content of modern aggressive Afri­kaner nationalism has much more in common with the ideology of international finance capital in the era of Imperialism than with the genuine cultural traditions of the Afrikaner people. Its contempt for democratic rights, its aggressively capitalistic outlook, and its bureau­cratic ideology are in fact utterly at variance with the more progressive aspects of Afrikaner tradition. Those Afrikaner intellectuals who have not turned into sycophantic puppets of the powers that be are in fact coming to realise this. The recent rumblings at Universities of Pretoria and Stellenbosch are an expression of these contradictions.

Once their investment in Afrikaner nationalism had delivered the state apparatus into their hands the lead­ing financial groups were able to accelerate their advance enormously.

(To be continued.)

MOROKA RESIDENTS may infuture have to pay an annual tax of 15s. for dogs and £1 10s. for bitches. This proposal of the City Council was discussed recently by the Moroka Advisory Board. The Board decided to oppose any dog tax while the people of the emergency camp are not properly housed.

SACTU Affiliates to WFTU

JOHANNESBURG. n ^H E South African Congress

of Trade Unions* is to affi­liate to the World Federation of Trade Unions. This was de­cided at a recent meeting of S.A.C.T.U.’s national executive held here recently, and the application for affiliation has been forwarded to W.F.T.U. headquarters in Vienna.

S.A.C.T.U.’s meeting re­viewed progress since the for­mation of the new militant, non­colour bar organisation. Four Local Committees have already been set up and are functioning. •

The report of the general secretary to the S.A.C.T.U. meeting recorded the decision of the Council of Non-European Trade Unions to merge with ^.A.C.T.U. “ It cannot be for­gotten,” Mr. Massina said in his report, “ that the Council of Non-European Trade Unions, after 12 years of intensive acti­vity, succeeded in uniting a sec­tion of the working class into a militant trade union centre, and without the support and co­operation of the Council, the formation of S.A.C.T.U. would have been impossible.”

Soviet Invites Robeson to Star in Russian

Film <<0thello”NEW YORK

T>AUL ROBESON, world famous American Negro singer and film star, has reapplied for a passport in order to accept a recent in­

vitation to appear in a film version of Shakespeare’s “Othello,” scheduled for production this summer in the Soviet Union.

The offer was made by Sergei Yutkevich, director of the Mosfilm Studio and one of the judges at the recent International Film Festival at Cannes, France.

“Knowing you as a magnificent portrayer of this role,” he wrote, “we would be very happy if you would agree to play Othello in our film, in either English or Russian, whichever language you would pre­fer.”

After cabling his acceptance, Robeson told reporters he had no fixed preference to the language to be used in the film. “The impor­tant thing to me is that here is a wonderful opportunity to partici­pate in a major artistic work, the most important screen role I’ve ever been afforded. The Russian theatre has a Shakespearean tradi­tion second to none, and the com­bination of this tradition with their renowned excellence in film tech­nique, should make this film ver­sion of ‘Othello’ an exciting event in world culture.” >

Robeson, whose greatest triumphs as an actor were in stage produc­tions of the tragedy, first appeared in the title role of the play 25 years ago in London. In 1944, he starred in the Theatre Guild pro­duction in New York. This was the longest run of a Shakespearean play in American stage history, playing to packed houses for a year on Broadway and for another season on the road.

Refused a passport since 1950, Robeson filed a suit last January for the right to travel and to fulfill concert and stage contracts in Eng­land, Israel and other countries. The case is now pending in federal court.

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«l MUST ADMIT RUSSIANATHLETICS ARE GREAT i f

Says U.S. Olympics Chief After Visit to Soviet UnionBy LESTER RODNEY

A NYONE who honestly won- ders how come the socialist

Soviet Union is suddenly so all- fired hot in international sports, what the real deep down secret is, can find a pretty fair working answer In these words of Avery Brundage in the Saturday Evening Post of April 30. Said “Mr. Olym­pics’* the president of the Inter­national Olympic Committee, after a trip to see for himself:

“During my 1934 visit I learned about the Soviet plans to give physical training to all Russians. The government was proposing to build playing fields, stadia and swimming pools in every city, town and village, at every large factory and on every collective farm. On my 1954 trip I saw the fruition of those plans.”

Plans to make the ways and means available to an entire popu­lation—and the fruition of those plans! Here is the heart and soul of what the Post called on its front cover “The Russian Menace at Next Year's Olympics.” (Inside the magazine, where they have to say what the article is really about and what Brundage actually said, the title is “I Must Admit—Rus­sian Athletics Are Great!”)

Yes, Brundage is frank in his admiration—and envy. He is “alarmed” over “the contrasting decline of amateur sport in America”.

FOR FUN, NOT PAYAmateur sport, in its final an­

alysis, means sport for fun, not for pay, sport for all. That’s what Brundage saw in the Soviet Union.

“I went to see the Soviet sports programme, not to pass judgment on their political system,” says the anti-Communist Chicago hotel owner. “What I saw was amaz­ing.”

Here is an idea of what he saw which led him to rhapsodize on the one hand as a sports lover, and gloomily say on the other

hand as an American; “Unless there is a sudden awakening in this country, Soviet sportsmen are almost certain to dominate the 1956 Olympic Games at Mel­bourne, Australia.”

In the Ukraine alone, he reports, there are 60,000 soccer football teams, 5,000 of them rated of t'opnotch quality. In Gori, he witnessed a district volleyball tournament in which 900 teams took part. He found ski jumps in the centre of large cities for the

Olympics For All?JOHANNESBURG.

A letter urging that South Africa should in future be allowed to participate in the Empire and Olympic Games only if her teams are chosen without regard to race, was written to the ‘London Times’ last week by Father Trevor Huddleston and Mr. Patrick Duncan.

They point out that South African teams have been selected to date from only the white population, although the other sections have produced men of Olympic status.

If the future South African teams were chosen without re­gard to race, it would remove the stigma of racialism attached to the Games, said the letter.

the Soviet Union (what, no iron curtain?) he saw it. On the Dnieper River, yacht clubs with swimming, diving, motorboating and rowing facilities. It was the same on the river in Moscow and on the Neva in Leningrad. He wit­nessed a festive All Union sports celebration in Moscow’s Dynamo Stadium whose participants, he writes, were from all over the Soviet Union. “There were Uzbeks, Tadzhiks, Kazakhs, Armenians, Georgians, Kirghiz. They repre­sented trade unions, sports socie­ties, schools and colleges.” The event, he says, “far surpassed in magnitude and beauty anything of its kind that I have seen in other parts of the world.”

Down on the Black Sea coast he was struck by the “scores of clubs . . . which they call sana­toria. These are rest camps for workers. They are equipped with medical clinics and sports facilities of all kinds. I saw more than 300 of these in Ddessa alone.”

first time in his life, in Kiev and Moscow. He saw running tracks “even in spnall hamlets on the steppes,” and he saw stadiums like Kirov Stadium in Leningrad which seats 100,000, and is being enlarged!

Once during a chat with some sports officials he asked how many track and field athletes the coun­try had in training.

“Four million,” was the casual answer.

Everywhere Brundage went in

He observes in evident wonder­ment, “The lives of almost all of Russia’s 200,000,000 are touched by the government’s emphasis on sports and physical training.”

The description of the sports programme as a programme for everyone is really an answer to the “they’re a bunch of pros” line, but Brundage answers it more spe­cifically, and one might finally hope, to the satisfaction of some “experts” here who never having been to the Soviet Union yet say learnedly “They must all be pros.”

QUESTIONS WELCOMEDHe describes a long, frank ex­

change with Nikolai Romanov, chairman of the Committee on Physical Culture and Sports, and Constantin Andrianov, president of the U.S.S.R.’s Olympic Com­mittee, in which all his questions were welcomed and fully an­swered.

On the matter of training camps (for which there is a 14-day limit under Olympic rules), Romanov said, “We never send a sportsman to a camp for more than 14 days. These camps are for final tryouts. In the United States you have similar Olympic tryouts, lasting two weeks sometimes, do you not?” Brundage says, “I wouldn’t deny this.”

Brundage then quotes the Soviet officials on their philosophy of sport, and fair play, including the fact that the Russians know, be­

lieve in and respect the Olympic code.

“ I saw nothing during my brief trip which would make me ques­tion Mr. Romanov’s answers,” says Brundage.

FRIENDSHIP WINSBrundage’s article reflects the

impact of the discovery that the world is changing. He says Rus­sian athletes are moving “at a pace which may carry the Red flag to unchallenged pre-eminence in international, sport in the next few years. There is a touch of irony in this, for sports and games once were almost exclusively Anglo-Saxon.”

He also shows that he sees this as something more than an acci­dent, or a national trait of the Russians, by tipping the hat to the Hungarians’ similar amazing development.

“In the last Olympic Games,” he says, “United States athletes won 76 medals, Hungarian ath­letes won 42. There are 160 mil­lion people in the United States, nine million in Hungary. Think that one over. It was only because of the speed of our Negro boys that we did as well as we did at Helsinki.”

No matter who wins or who loses in the unofficial Olympic point score, everyone wins when friendship and sanity replace arti­ficial hatred and war hysteria.

PLAN TO INTENSIFY U.S.SPY CAMPAIGN

LONDON.

ON the eve of the Big Four meeting in Geneva, an outrageous proposal has been made in Washington that United States espionage and sabotage in the socialist countries should be

intensified;

G R E A T F R E E D O M D A N C E(NOVELTY DANCES AND PRIZES)

AT THE

S P R I N G B O K H A L L On FRIDAY. I2th AUGUST, 1955

MUSIC BY SWING ACES BAND DANCING FROM 8 TO 2 a.lll.Admission 7/6

B u S6S F r6 6 Block B, Noordgesig, Orlando,To: Kliptown.

A f te r tf io r i a n r o (2) Coronationville, N e w c l a r e ,A l i e r m e u a n c e Sophiatown, Newlands and

t Albertville.----------------- PROCEEDS IN AID OF NEW AGE ------------------

The proposal is contained in the report of a non-oflicial six-man “task ’force,” headed by General Mark Clark, on the workings of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, whose chief is Mr. Alan Dulles, brother of the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.

Appeal to Pretoria ReadersCongress members and Progressives; New Age is the only paper which helps you in your struggle for Liberation. Unless our sales in Pretoria district increase our office will be forced to close down, and Pretoria will cease to get news which can o n l y be

got from New Age.WANTED! WANTED! WANTED!

AGENTS AND VOLUNTARY SELLERS— LIBERAL COMMISSION RATES —

Write or see: Mr. Elifos Ditsele, 979, Swart Street, Lady Selborne Location, Pretoria.

(General Clark, who was formerly U.S. commander in Korea, recently called for the United Nations to be converted into an anti-Soviet bloc. At the same time he demanded the severing of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. “Inevitably,” he said, “I think there must be a show­down with Communism.”)

The report 6f Gen. Clark’s task force also included a “top secret” report on the activities of U.S. agents abroad, not made public “be­cause of its extremely sensitive con­tent.” This was sent straight to President Eisenhower.

PRIMARY TARGETThe published report says there

should be “greater concentration on the collection of intelligence infor­mation from our primary target — Russia and her satellites and Com­munist China.

“The task force is deeply con­cerned over the lack of adequate

intelligence data from behind the Iron Curtain.“ Proper directional emphasis,

aggressive leadership, boldness and persistence are essential to achieve the desired results.”

The report calls for “more bold­ness at policy level,” which must include a willingness to “accept certain calculated political and diplo­matic risks.” At the same time it praised Alan Dulles for his “indus­trious, objective, selfless, enthusiastic and imaginative” leadership of U.S. espionage activities.

Footnote-. At the tenth anniver­sary celebrations of the United Nations in San Francisco last month, John Foster Dulles said there was an extremely simple method of end­ing the cold war;

“Refrain from the use of force or threat of force in international rela­tions, and from the support and direction of subversion against the institutions of other countries.”

THE PEOPLE SHALL GOVERN!

Ev e r y m a n a n d w o m a n s h a l l h a v e t h e r ig h tTO VOTE FOR AND TO STAND AS A CANDIDATE FOR A LL BODIES W HICH MAKE LAWS;

All people shall be entitled to take port in the administration of the country;

The rights of the people shall be the some regardless of race, colour or sex;

All bodies of minority rule, advisory boards, councils and authorities shall be replaced by democratic organs of self-government.

(Extract from the F'rcedom Charter)

Published by Real Printing &. Publishing Co. (Pty.) Ltd., 6 Barrack Street, Cape Town, and printed by Pioneer Press (Pty.) Ltd., Forgate Street, Woodstock. Unless otherwise stated, all political matter in this issue by L. Forman, 6 Barrack Street, Cape Town.

U.S. Sabotage in Vietnam

LONDON.•'TIHE United States was trying to

sabotage the holding of elec­tions next year for the unification of Viet Nam, Mr. Chou En-Iai, the Chinese Prime Minister, warned in Peking recently.

He was speaking at a banquet in honour of President Ho Chi Minh, of North Viet Nam, who was visit­ing Peking.

Mr. Chou said the Geneva Four Power talks had “brought new hopes for the relaxation of inter­national tension,” but went on to draw attention to the dangers of U.S. policy in Indo-China.

The United States had not only illegally included South Viet Nam. Cambodia and Laos in the scope of its S.E.A.T.O. war pact, but was training and equipping troops of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Viet Nam, he charged.

They had also concluded a mili­tary assistance pact with Cambodia and were trying to conclude one with Laos. “All these activities are in violation of the Geneva agree­ments,” he said.

After leaving China, Ho Chi Minh is to visit Moscow.

EXPERT WATCHMAKERSReasonable prices and guaranteed workmanship. For Cycles, Watches and Jewellery come to Klaff’s Cycle Works, 82 Harrison Street, Johan­nesburg. New Age readers will re­ceive a special discount on all new watches bought. Managed by Issy Hevman.

OPTICIANSWolfson & De Wet, F.N.A.O. (Eng.), Qualified Sight-testing and Dispensing Opticians, 4 King George Street (between Bree and Plein Streets), Johannesburg. Please

note Change of Address.Phone 22-3834

20% R«4iK:tion to AfricMM

Collection Number: AG2887

Collection Name: Publications, New Age, 1954-1962

PUBLISHER: Publisher: Historical Papers Research Archive, University of the Witwatersrand Location: Johannesburg ©2016

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