As members of the Editorial Board who acknowledge a share of the responsibility for the process by which content is selected for the Dwarf, we nevertheless wish to dissociate ourselves from the article about South Africa and the ANC which appeared in the last issue of the paper. It is our opinion that many of the completely unsubstantiated, and what is more they were virtually unverifiable (e.g. the accusation that the Wankie guerrillas were deliberately sent to their deaths by the ANC leaders). Many of the criticisms were also of a sensationalist and personal nature that was more reminiscent of the tactics of the gutter-press smear campaigns than the Canons of socialist criticism. The accusations made were not placed in a theoretical frametitle help to sociatiste and thty mpeeiaf and for that reason they were of ists, while being of great help to the enemies of the South African people. The article was purely destructive-it contained no positive suggestions, no organisational, theoretical or practical alterna tives and for that reason its effect on the solidarity movement in this country can only be negative.
We also believe that it is an unhealthy sign when a socialist journal spends more energy attacking anti-imperialist organisations than it does attacking the imperialists they are fighting against (in this case the racist regimes South Africa and Zimbabwe). We believe that when these attacks are published many thousands of miles away from the actual struggle, they should be published with more caution than was shown in the case of this article.
We believe that when criticisms are made of liberation organisations (whether the organisation in question is the NLF in Vietnam or the ANC in South Africa)
these criticisms should be as constructive as possible, and should only be made after exhaustive discussion and research.
None of this is to say that we believe the ANC is above criticism. But we do believe that this article made the wrong criticisms, and we also wish to make it clear that the disclaimer of previous artacles in the Dwarf and the total support for the position taken in this particular article appeared in the editorial introduction without our knowledge or approval.
John Mitchell, Vinay Chand. Sheila Rowbotham, Adrian Mitchell, Comrades, Before dealing with the points raised by your letter I would like to make one important self-criticism: the political presentation of the article was grossly inadequate and we should have had a much longer introduction explaining why we were publishing it and admitting that we had taken a serious step in doing so and inviting the ANC to reply in detail to the allegations.
You claim in your letter that much of the material on the ANC is virtually unverifiable. I agree, in the sense that the article contains no footnotes or references to other material, which our readers could check. However, I claimed no more than that the general line of the article was correct. Our contacts in Africa and London checked certain specific aspects of the document and their revolutionary credentials have not been questioned by any single member of the Editorial Board. It is the duty of all revolutionaries to inform themselves as best they can, but a refusal to make choices is to make a fetish of one's conscience. It is political irresponsibility and it takes one cism of existing theorv that advances ca into the realms of bourgeois liberalism.
In the past the Dwarf has painted too optimistic a picture of the situation in Southern Africa. In that the article shatters this picture it is, as you say, destructive but no solidarity movement can be built on myths; it must be built on the basis of the oppressed people. That struggle in Southern Africa will be a protracted one. The question of a revolutionary leadership will be resolved in the course of the struggle of the South African masses themselves. To pretend that such a leadership is already in existence and that the struggle has reached an advanced stage can only lay the basis for a profound demoralisation of the solidarity movement in the future.
Comrades, you say that the article is not placed in a theoretical framework. If by this, you mean a Marxist-Leninist analysis, I agree. but such an analysis is an enormous task, in fact the decisive task of the revolutionary movement, which has not been fulfilled in Britain nor by any of the existing organisations in Southern Africa. It is only through critiYou say that the article is destructive a sente ramework because it contained "no organisational.
theoretical or practical alternatives"
believe this criticism to be misplaced for two reasons. First, to criticise these comrades for having as yet no alternative org anısation is a kind of paternalism. Criti cism of a political organisation cannot be dependent upon the existence of alternatives. We'd all be in the Labour Party. if we accepted such an idea. Secondly, the -article contains very concrete political.
military and organisational proposals, among which the most important are priflegend to corruption, nepotism and privilege within end to bureaucratic and terroristic methods of suppressing internal debate and for freedom of tendencies within the organisation. 3. Making the needs of the freedom fighters the first priority within the organisation. 4. Turning ANC towards people's war, that is, integrating the organisation in the South African masses.
I don't wish to give the impression that I possess no criticisms of the editorial board's handling of this article. In fact, it has underlined profound weaknesses which your letter doesn't touch upon. In particular, the fact that such a controversial article could be with the knowledge and approval of the whole board despite the fact that some members had not read it. More generally our differences on this question reflect the absence of a discussion on the board up till now of the political role of the paper. It is to these weaknesses that we all should address ourselves.
Yours fraternally, Tariq Ali.
THE ANC REPLY The youth and student movement of the ANC has circulated a document called Black Dwarf speaks White Trash which replies to the article on the AN in the last Dwarf.
They violently accuse the authors of the statement of being counter-revolutionary agents and renegades and denounce the article itself as a South African Police job. One fact that they give as evidence for this grave accusation is that last July the South African Times carried a story on the original statement.
The ANC refuse to acknowledge any of the major problems which the article alleged to afflict their leadership. Nevertheless they do attempt substantial replies to specific matters of fact and these should be available to all Dwarf readers.
The ANC youth section argues that: *The facts are that the Wankie campaigns are the ones that resulted in the heaviest casualties suffered by the white settlers in Southern Africa since 1896. In the October 1969 issue of the American quarterly Foreign Affairs, Russell Warren Howe writes:
*Field reports show that Rhodesian losses are higher than those of the guerrillas-although the Smith regime helps to conceal this fact by conducting military funerals at night, by cordoning off roads when mortuary convoys pass and by the orthodox lies of war.
Ian Smith and his tottering regime appealed for help to South Africa which readily intervened with thousands of troops and planes. The campaigns covered many guerrilla engagements which went on for months. Some leading comrades in our movements fell in those campaigns but many continue to fight to this day: among those who fought are with us and participated in the recent cultural festival in Algeria and this includes commanders of the campaign.
The remarks in the statement about the equipment carried by the guerrillas is meaningless. What is meant by "big arms"? Have weapons no names any more? If the authors were anywhere near the front they would know what these weapons were. Or can anybody seriously suggest that the guerrillas were having strapped over their shoulders such weapons as howitzers, heavy mortars, heavy machine guns? Those are the big weapons. If the authors knew anything about guerrilla warfare they would have seen through this lie. During the Wankie operations, for instance, some of the guerrillas marched all the way into South Africa. Could they have done so if they were carrying heavy weapons? After the fierce fighting which raged over a large part of Zimbabwe after August 1967, the imperialist press both in this country and in South Africa were compelled to admit that the fighting in Zimbabwe was no mere window-dressing or fiasco'. Here we shall merely quote a few of these statements from newspapers which are, to say the least, hostile to the armed revolutionary struggle of our people led by the ANC. 1) London Sunday Telegraph of 28/7/1968:
*They (guerrillas) are well-armed with such weapons as the highly efficient Chinese Kalashnikov A.K. 47 automatic rifle. They carry modern grenades and land mines, and are equipped with powerful radios... 2) Rand Daily Mail of 18/11/1969:
The Russian anti-tank gun is one of the most powerful weapons captured ... The gun can be carried by one man and is capable of nenetratino eight inchec of coal?
They (guerrillas) carried the best equipment and showed the greatest fighting ability of any terrorists who have crossed the border.
It is true that most of the authors of the document do not speak the African language spoken in Zimbabwe or any African language for that matter. But we can assure the editors of Black Dwarf that the majority of Africans in South Africa do not need to be taught the languages spoken in the terrain of the Wankie campaigns. THEY ALREADY KNOW THEM. If the authors knew anything about the situation in Southern Africa, they would have known that the language spoken in this area is Sindebele which is directly related to the Nguni languagegroups of South Africa, such as Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Shangane, etc. As everybody knows something like ninety per cent of the Africans in the urban areas of South Africa speak Zulu.
Instead of giving space to ill-informed slanders about the Wankie operations, Black Dwarf ought to have given space to those who actually fought in the stirring battles in Zimbabwe to describe what happened. If you meet the men who fought in these battles-and there are quite a few battle-seasoned who have survived so that they can fight again-you are absolutely impressed by their high morale and the determination to go back to the front. In an interview in the Guardian of 16/7/1968 an unidentified ANC guerrilla who had been involved in the fighting recalls:
•Morale is very high in my platoon. We have seen that white soldiers are desperate men."
The authors of this document claim that the entire leadership of the ANC is itself not prepared to get back to Southern Africa and be amongst the fighting masses..."
The whole world knows that some of the very top leaders of the African National Congress came out for military training and went back to South Africa. There is Nelson Mandela who, in the Rivonia trial, stated that he had undergone military training. He went back and is now on Robben Island. There is Raymond Mhlaba, Wilton Mkwayi, Joe Gabi, Andrew Miangani and others who trained outside South Africa, went back and worked among the mass masses. Unfortunately most of these were later arrested and now serving long-term sentences on Robben Island.
During the Wankie campaign some of the top military commanders of ZAPU and ANC actually participated in the fighting. The Wankie campaign guerrilla detachment was led by John Dube of ZAPU who is a member of the military headquarters of ZAPU guerrillas. John Dube was chosen to lead the group because he was born and brought up in the area of the Wankie operations. From the ANC side, the Chief of Staff of Umkhonto We Sizwe (the ANC military wing), Mrigarwana Mjojo fought in these operations In the Eastern Front of our guerrilla operatons in Limbabwe, we regret to say that one of our top leaders, Comrade Patrick Molao, popu Larly known as Pat, who was the President of the ANC Youth League, died heroically in action.
According to the statement, the ANC received both material and financial aid the world over. This is indeed news to the ANC. The truth of the matter is that in the whole universe there are less than a dozen countries giving money and material aid to the growing struggle in Southern Africa. Like all guerrilla movements, ZAPU and ANC are struggling under very difficult conditions to conduct a fight against highly armed and equipped governments with vast resources. If Black Dwarf and those who wrote this statement know of countries or organisations which have given aid to the ANC they are at liberty to name them. We do not know of any that gave aid as a result of the Wankie campaigns.
The post of "Vice-President' does not exist in the ANC and therefore it is not clear who was televised in some country in Europe skiing and addressing student rallies.
The next series of allegations relate to 'assaults, maiming, murders and rapes' practised by the ANC leadership against guerrillas. It is not clear what the purpose of all this would be for any movement endeavouring to organise a revo lutionary struggle. One after another the allegations follow without a tittle of evidence being produced in support. For instance, the statement talks of a 'strong-arm group' composed of Lumumba Institute graduates who are to break others spiritually, mentally and physically. There are less than half-a-dozen graduates of Lumumba Institute among the guerrillas and these have never met or seen any of the authors of this document. How this handful could illtreat regiments of trained guerrillas is beyond comprehension.
In any event the effect of these allegations talions of starved, raped, physically and mental.
ly wrecked men and women! The remainder are those who have been murdered! Are the authors of this document and those who pub.
lish it as representing the truth really serious?
We would state categorically that the ANC guerrillas are among the most highly trained and the toughest fighters you can get anywhere This has been proved on the field. And it is as well to correct one other statement by the auth ors of this document. No ANC guerrilla has ever surrendered to the white soldiers! Some have been captured after their ammunition ran out during battle.
This slanderous document refers to relatives of leaders' among the guerrillas, one of whom has been identified as the son of the TreasurerGeneral of the ANC. We are not surprised that for once the authors gave us some means of identifying the subject of their allegations. The truth is that this happens to be the only relative of a top leader of the ANC who was a member of the guerrillas. It is therefore not understood who the nieces, nephews, sons and daughters referred to are?
For a moment it seemed that the document would begin, at least, to discuss politics when referring to the so-called "Moscow Line'. It was not to be. This has also been pulled in to find some means to attack and discredit the leadership. The authors also hope opportunistically, like many others, to exploit the differences that have arisen in the anti-imperialist movement as a result of differences between China and the Soviet Union. The African National Congress is a national movement of the oppressed people of South Africa having within its ranks people of differing ideological stands. The ANC has had long links with China and many of the guerrillas and their leading cadres were trained in China. The allegation of discrimination agamst comrades trained in China is a blatant lie. But the purpose is plain, It is to try and gain the support for this document of those who support the viewpoint of the Chinese in the so-called Sino-Soviet dispute. Is this not perhaps the trap into which Black Dwarf fell in so readily accepting the role of platform for this document? Why should the leadership send any of its supporters for training to China and then discriminate against them when they re turn? The thing just does not make sense The document speaks of tribalism and the authors pretend they know something about this subject. What they have produced is nothing but a story aimed against the leadership.
There are few movements who have fought tribalism as hard as the ANC and we do not need lessons from anyone. No doubt this is the prob.
em that faces and is going to face our move ments and countries for a long time. The enem has realised the potency of encouraging tribalism as a means of breaking down unity among the oppressed people. The record of the ANC in this particular issue is a matter of pride in our country.
In their 'story' the authors of this document obviously are confused about the state of affairs but then for them it does not matter whether the facts are correct. The main thing is to get some allegation in. The majority of the people in the camp the authors speak of were never from the Cape Province. It is interesting that the only names mentioned in the document of leaders allegedly responsible for the numerous allegations are not from the Cape Province either. We are not going to conduct a tribal count for the benefit of the enemies. But one thing is clear. Someone who is certainly non-African must have tried to tell the authors of this document something about tribalism in the AN and they have just taken it over parrot-fashion, for purposes of slanderous allegations.
At the Morogoro conference of the ANC in April this year, many of the problems and diffi culties confronting the liberation movement in Southern Africa were discussed seriously and with responsibility. Many of the participants were men who had fought at Wankie in Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Others were veterans of the struggle in South Africa for the last forty years and whom suddenly the authors of this document want to cover with dirt and slander. The conference analysed and summed up the tasks facing the movement in the era of armed revolution'and laid the basis for the intensification of the armed struggle. The African National Congress, like any serious revolutionary organisation, has problems but these are tackled in a responsible, serious and honest manner. This was the practice when the movement operated legally in South Africa and continues to be the case even when we face the serious problem of operating underground.
The African National Congress and its leadership has been truly tried and tested in the strug
cord of struggle of over 5 decades against the racist tyranny and oppression of our people by successive South African white governments Our organisation fearlessly wielded all possible weapons of peaceful struggle and forged unity among the African people as well as other revolutionaries belonging to the national minorities.
And when the time arrived to meet brute force of the present South African police state, our organisation neither hesitated nor shacked its duty. Some of our best cadres have already sacrificed their lives in the course of the struggle. We are truly proud of the heroic exploits of our young guerrilla army."
Considering the strategic importance of South Africa (SA) to the South Atlantic defence system of Western imperialism, British capitalism's huge investments in SA and its share of responsibility for the oppression and exploitation now endemic there, and the crucial fact that the success of the revolutionary struggle in South Africa is the key to the defeat of imperialism in Africa at least up to the Sahara, it was thought that the silence of the British Left on this question amounted to collusion with imperialism at the most or a lack of revolutionary internationalism at the very least.
We therefore welcome the publication in the Dwarf of the disclosures about the betrayal of the SA revolutionary struggle by the ANC leadership for the following reasons:
1. It is the revolutionary duty of the publications of the Left to publish all vital information about the world revolution against imperialism without fear or favour since most of it is either suppressed or distorted by the bourgeois press.
2. It is necessary to stimulate debate, assessment and critical appraisal of all sectors of the world revolution.
3. Proletarian internationalism demands that we should lend support to genuine revolutionary movements -in this particular case, the ANC body of dedicated and committed freedom fighters against their reactionary and corrupt leadership which browbeats them, restrains them with brutality, and uses them for nefarious ends.
4. The publication of this information entails no security risks for Souther Africa's Liberanon struggle because it does not reveal any plans or strategy for the conduct of the struggle. Besides, the information in this document was published and circulated amongst Liberation movements and African states as early as March 1966 by the ANC freedom fighters by whom it was signed, and it has been public information therefore for a long time. Further, (a) O. R. Tambo, acting President-General of the ANC issued a press statement (in London) in or about Sept.-Oct. 1967 in connection with the entry of ANC guerrillas in Wankie reserve, Rhodesia. Revealing details in the statement, more or less pin-pointing the area of operations, led to the defeat of the guerrillas by the government forces. Pictures were shown later with J. Chikerema, Vice-President of ZAPU (in military alliance with ANC) and O. R. Tambo working out, presumably, strategy on a map of Southern Africa. Following on this, the Sunday Times of Johannesburg, after an interview with Chikerema, carried the gist of his conversation with a series of pictures showing guerrillas in training somewhere in Central Africa. Thereafter various appeals were sent out to individuals and organisations for aid. This publicity was given out at the moment of imminent battle in Rhodesia.
(b) Various British newspapers have carried articles containing revealing and compromising details about the liberation struggle in Southern Africa. Examples: -The Guardian of 18/12/68; The Sunday Telegraph carried a series of articles in April 1969 showing the actual location of training camps in Africa, OAU finances (in detail) for the prosecution of the struggle, policy, strategy, dissatisfaction of guerrillas, security information, disagreements within and among liberation movements, foreign financial aid to the movements and specific source countries.
5. The publication of this document brings to light and compels closer examination of the paradox of seemingly two opposing forces, namely, British imperialism through its liberal wing and the Soviet Union, both giving support and substantial financial aid to the AÑC "Anti-Apartheid struggle". We cannot ignore the profound implications of this alignment for the struggle in Souther Africa. And although it is rather late in the day, we must publish to put things in proper perspective.
TWO STRUGGLES In South Africa there are two unrelated and mutually exclusive struggles taking place simultaneously. The first, the minor struggle, is the struggle between the English-speaking minority numerically superior Afrikaners who control the political machine, the government. Although the line of distinction between the two has become somewhat ill-defined and blurred in parts with the emergence of a division within the Afrikaner camp in recent years, between the Verligtes, leaning towards and acquiring an increasing share of English-speaking industrial capitalism, and the less enlightened Verkramptes, the basic contradiction of Afrikaner vs English-speaking antagonism still remains. And although the Afrikaners, the "indigenous" bourgeoisie, vociferously declared themselves to be against British imperialism, both English-speaking and Afrikaners are absolutely united in the oppres sion and exploitation of the non-white majority.
Unable to return to power after their defeat by the Afrikaners in the 1948 general elections, the English-speaking section, taking advantage of their influence over the traditional and petit-bourgeois leadership of the ANC, sought to use the ANC as a battering-ram against the Afrikaner government in what became known as the Anti-Apartheid struggle. Thus the ANC embarked on its pacifist demonstrations, token strikes, days of mourning (June 26th), anti-pass campaigns and appeals to the government for a change of heart. Even sabotage of harmless targets like telephone kiosks and pass-issuing of Jices was resorted to so long as care was taken not to harm the economy of the sponsors. The whole plan was to create unrest in order to frighten the white electorate into returning an English-speaking government, a so-called "lesser evil". In other words the potential power of the masses was demonstrated and pressure built up precisely not to use it.
When the Communist Party of SA (CPSA) was proscribed in the fifties it went underground and gained effective control and direction of the ANC through the then newly-formed Ad hoc Congress Alliance, in reality a liberal and neoliberal non-united front composed of the ANC (for the appearance of mass African support), SA Indian Congress (representing the Indian petit-bourgeois • merchant class, Congress of Democrats (representing CPSA and liberal elements). the SA Congress of Trade. Unions and the SA Coloured People's Organisation (both CPSA-dominated). This gave the CPSU a more effective if relayed voice in the shared guidance of the ANC The slogan "no politics in the Trade Unions" of the CPSA, its tacit acceptance of White Trusteeship and therefore black inferiority as well as racially-separated trade unions are perhaps useful indications of the liberal character and "revolutionary" practice of the CPSA., When the government adopted more brutal methods of repression in the early sixties, the Anti-Apartheid struggle was transterred abroad in two sections-the one section to operate from London covering the West under the guidance and assistance of the liberal wing of the British establishment, St. Paul's Cathedral. From here, under an assortment of names, publicity has stretched as far as the UN urging support for the Anti-Apartheid struggle and the adoption of futile trade sanctions ... as a mode of strug gling against the SA regime... "(O. R. Tambo in Sechaba, February 1969, Le. a reliance on the enemy class for ... assistance to our cause" (ibid).
The other more powerful section is based in East Africa working in East Europe and in Africa and with greater financial assistance from Moscow. With a foot in each of both worlds, the ANC commands and has obtained enormous funds: -the West paying to buy the ANC leadership off the revolutionary road, restrain it and stave off the threat of revolution to its investments in SA valued at more than £1,100 million. -Moscow, to contain the revolution in accordance with the requirements of "peaceful coexistence" with the West and respect for the status quo in each other's area of influence so as not to upset the world balance of power. The resolutions passed at the Moscow-sponsored Khartoum Conference (18.1.69) of certain amenable liberation movements show clearly Moscow's restraining directives and diversion of the ANC's struggle away from Southern Africa and towards the metropolitan countries in liberally financed Anti-Apartheid pressure. Here East and West coincide.
It is important not to confuse the Anti-Apartheid struggle of the ANC of South Africa, with the assistance and support of the Establishment in the West on the one hand with the Anti-Apartheid protest in various western countries on the other. The latter is an action of militant solidarity with the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed and exploited people of SA who appreciate it enthusiastically as comradely supand support for the South African regime, the Nigerian war, complicity and support for the US in Vietnam-a vastly different position from that of the Establishment's support for the ANC's Anti-Apartheid out of collusion with SA's obnoxious system. The distinction must be drawn sharply and the issue clarified for the radical movement in Europe.
ON RHODESIA After 7 years of campaigning abroad, with immense funds collected and with a few hundred guerrilla fighters growing more restive by the day after years of idleness in camp, the ANC still has nothing to show for this fund of good will and staggering financial aid-thanks to the liberals and the Kremlin. Since continuing nonaction in the struggle would pose a threat to the flow of funds particularly trom various sources in the West and the trickle from the OAU, it would be necessary to embark on something spectacular. And so it was to be the Rhodesian venture accompanied by a fanfare of needless and detrimental (to the guerrillas) publicity.
The guerrillas were sent into a foreign coun try. Unable to get political and material support from the local population, unfamiliar with their language and the terrain and therefore compelled to make an offensive on the lines of more or less conventional warfare against a numerically stronger and highly equipped army of the governments of Rhodesia and South Africa, the outcome of the leadership's criminal irresponsibility was never in doubt from the beginning. More serious than the needless sacrifice of gallant revolutionaries was the political disaster that the venture advanced only the interests of imperialism and was a terrible setback to the revolution.
The importance of Rhodesia to British imperialism lies more in its position as a buffer protecting the substantial investments in South Africa against the hostile African states to the North than in its dispensable intrinsic value as an investment area. For this reason Britain would like to strengthen the buffer militarily, but she could not do this herself without creating serious complications in that situation. It is our view that Britain most probably supported the ANC's plan enthusiastically for jund-raising considerations and urged on the ANC a press statement to coincide with the beginning of the operation. This would serve as a pre-arranged signal to South Africa to send its forces into Rhodesia on the pretext that SA guerrillas had infiltrated Rhodesia, thereby adding military strength to imperialism's "Maginot" line of defences now stretching from Mozambique, through Rhodesia and the Caprivi strip of SWA to Angola in the West. Because of the deep-going good relations between Britain and SA, the latter would never be able to send its forces into Rhodesia, a British dominion UDI notwithstanding, without express British approval. SA troops are now stationed on the southern border of Zambia, a country of immense strategic impor tance to Southern Africa's revolutionary strug gle. This setback has added measurably to the many difficulties which already existed in the UTER THE PEOPLE'S REVOLUTIONARY The second struggle is the major struggle of the oppressed masses for emancipation. For this struggle the large peasant-worker organisations are federated in the Unity Movement of South Africa. It is based largely in the countryside where the landless peasantry, the source of migrant labourers, are herded in reserves called Bantustans. They constitute more than 70% of the African masses, the producers of the wealth and prosperity of the SA economy Founded in 1943 out of the All-African Convention it brought together the various organisations of the non-white oppressed in a non-racial political movement with a leadership of revolutionary Marxists armed with a clearly formulated policy and programme. This:
united the two streams struggling for land and national liberation;
created the only movement which carried on a struggle that is completely independent from ruling class ideas with centralised political direc tion;
engaged in the day-to-day struggle of the people in order to raise the level of political consciousness as a necessary preparation for revolution; - ensured that the peasant-worker alliance was under the leadership of the proletariat, the migrant industrial labourers, in order to maintain the continuity of the democratic revolution uninterruptedly to its socialist goal.
There were uprisings in various parts of the country, particularly between the years 19481962, when the police and army were called in. The bourgeois press, in a conspiracy of silence against the people's struggle, never mentioned the shootings and killings of hundreds of people -the same press which publicised the ANC liberal passive campaign. UMSA was completely shut out of the SA press because it constituted the only threat to capitalist exploitation. The liberals abroad have blocked all avenues of assistance to this struggle, and it is only this which stands between those politicised and dedicated masses and the beginnings of the people's revo Page Statement on the Cause of Southern African Revolutionaries:
Congratulations! African revolutionaries will wholeheartedly applaud the Black Dwarf for taking such a great step in the history of the British Left by publishing an exposure of the ANC in the last issue.
Most of the British Left has never been able to rid itself of the inherent racist and paternalistic attitudes of British society. They fight hard to defend the African nationalist bourgeoisie ut the expense of African revolutionaries. It is like the Soviet Union giving millions of aid to the fascist reactionary regime of Ethiopia which helps that regime to suppress forces of socialism and progress in that country. It is only African militants in the field in Southern Africa who know best which organisations or leaders are good for their revolution, and not "revolution aries 6,000 miles away who depend for the information on news media owned by the English high bourgeoisie.
It is high time the voice of African revolu tionaries was heard by the world through their own mouths. The chance has now come for the British Left to show its solidarity, and here the Black Dwarf has taken a historic step. From now on Africans will be recommended to read it.
Liberals posing as revolutionaries and other white sympathisers of ANC will, no doubt, be bitterly disappointed by the exposure of the "revolution in Southern Africa after having eliminated revolutionaries whom they see as a challenge to their hegemony The Tanzanian and Zambian governments should be advised to withdraw their help or support from the ANC leadership and help the freedom fighters themselves who are the only people physically involved in the struggle. ANC and ZAPU have some very good elements in their leadership. But how many are they? They are muzzled. That is why such things as mentioned in the document take place. What many of the most powerful ANC leaders mean, without saying it of course, is that "You white people in Southern Africa have no right to oppress and exploit our people, give us the chance, we want to exploit them". This they have already started by killing left-wing cadres who aim at changing the system itself and not just replacing a-white Vorster by a black Vorster, as happened in Kenya, Malawi, etc.
Liberation movements in Southern Africa are united fronts made up of all patriotic, national ist and socialist forces. But for such a united front to deliver the desired goods to the people, truly revolutionary socialist elements must dominate the alliance. This is not the case with ANC, and remember, this organisation has been existing for more than 50 years. Has it moved an inch towards creating a revolution?
To expect such an organisation to be able to solve such problems is to show ignorance about the class position of these people. They have class interests to protect. They try to solve such difficulties by elimination. The Zimbabwe Stu dents Union in Europe has always spoken and written in its paper, the Challenge, about the nature of our problems, but very few gave it a hearing.
Andrew Muchenje, Secretary, Zimbabwe Students Union in Europe.
Dear Editor, I read with dismay the article in Black Dwarf titled "Southern Africa: A Betrayal" which described the corruption of ANC and the treacherous conduct of its organisation.
What a dismal impression this must have made on your readers; everyone must have given up hope of the success of any liberation struggle in Southern Africa. Your paper is partly at fault here-a case of pinning all your hopes on one horse.
You have in the past given ample coverage to the supposed guerrilla struggle in Rhodesia of ANC and ZAPU, but seem to have turned a blind eye to the struggle for Mozambique. I pro pose that it is here that the crucial battle is be ing waged.
FRELIMO, having liberated the northern territories of Mozambique, is not only confronting the Portuguese imperialists 65,000 strong, but the South African army no less, which, represented by 2,000 troops, is stationed in Tete province adjacent to Rhodesia. A look at the map would soon convince any half-blind revolutionary of the importance of this.
Thanks mainly to Portuguese public relations and British Government silence, this situation has been hushed up on an unprecedented scale.
Let's have coverage, information and publicity for this struggle and break the monopoly of attention ANC ' and ZAPU command in this country. The struggle for Southern Africa is in full swing and is not being fought by pseudoguerrilla movements who couldn't even cross the Zambezi!
South Africa regards the Mozambique war as the biggest threat to her security: surely this paper must give all the attention to the struggle that it can.
Yours, D. J. Elliott, 245 Cromwell Road, S.W.S
The spell of technology is apparently talismanic. From left to right of the political spectrum are to be found those who credit it with almost unlimited powers. Symptomatic of this underlying awe are two arguments encountered today. The first is that the search for raw materials (primary commodities) no longer constitutes a major imperia list drive. The other is that there are no effective objective real resource limitations standing between mankind and the realisation of general material abundance. I believe the facts belie these postulates. I deal first with the actual significance of raw materials tor imperialism today, and then turn to a consideration of longer term implications of the dynamic resource-population equation.
Common to the two propositions is the contention that modern science and technology, having already freed modern industry from a number of its original raw matemal needs (indigo and rubber are two well-known examples), will progressively reduce remaining needs. Now this thesis has a certain superficial plausibility, for it is true that in this century the rate of increase in raw material inputs has failed to keep pace with the rate of increase in final commodity production, or-to put it another way-that for each unit of manufacturing output there is progressively a smaller input of raw materials. The GNP resulting from a given input of raw materials in the USA rose from four times that input in 1900 to eight times in 1950, for instance. This greater economy in raw material utilisation is the result of a number of factors, notable among which are: substitution of synthetic for natural materials; more efficient collection and reclamation of scrap; enhanced technological proficiency in exploiting the raw products; and the increasing complexity of final products, demanding extended working on the original input of raw material.
However, mechanical extrapolation of this tendency, which seems to hold out the promise of eventual self-sufficiency to the developed industrial powers, and the prospect of achieving comparable living standards to the poorer, is totally misleading. For this there are a number of reasons, which it is my purpose in this article to elucidate.
In the last three decades of the nineteenth century a complex of new industries demanding heavy capital outlays and contimuous large inputs of raw materials began to dominate the industrialised countries. To assure their sources of supply of raw materials, these giants, in collaboration with the respective imperialist governments, combed the world for available resources of iron ore, tin, oil and other essential commodities. From an early stage, vertical combination characterised many of the new giants: the significance of vertical combination is as a measure of the determination with which these industries pursued the goal of guaranteed sources of supply of raw materials. Businessmen could not afford to indulge in day-dreams about what technology might achieve in the way of substitutes, synthetics, ete.: they worked from the outset on the assumption that, for practical purposes, many of the raw materials they required were effectively in finite supply, and therefore that what they could engross was by the same token denied to their competitors. Thus, after 1870, there ensued a desperate scramble for colonies and a never-ending struggle for imperialist influence and privileges throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The struggle goes on with unremitting intensity today. Indeed, it is if anything more intense now than ever before. One of the principal reasons for this is that the United States of America, once a net exporter of raw materials, has emerged in the postsecond world war period as a major net importer, whose dependence upon imported raw materials has grown steadily, year by year. Another is that more and more countries have started to, or are attempting to, industrialise, and therefore have entered world markets as customers for raw materials, Again, in the fortunate high-income countries incomes per capita are rising steadily, with the corollary that per capita consumption of industrially-necessary metals and other raw materials are also rising steadily (a high living standard is reflected precisely in the amount of metal with which one surrounds oneself in the form of cars, refrigerators, TV sets, etc.). With some essential commodities, such as oil, demand is rising extremely rapidly; world petroleum production and consumption roughly double every decade.
It is necessary to think very carefully and clearly about the implications of America's growing dependence upon raw materials, because here we have the country with the most advanced scientific and technological capacity in the world. American business, military and government circles have been quite conscious of the problem for many years now. During the second worldwar, immense thought and planning went into the elaboration of post-war economic policy. with the need to secure access to raw materials prominent among the considerations kept constantly in mind. This insistent theme of U.S. policy runs right through Gabriel Kolko's brilliant analysis of great power politics from 1943 to 1945, The Polities of War (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969).
In the 1940s, America imported on average just over 5% of her domestic consumption of minerals. In the 1950s this rose to nearly 13%. In the early sixties, it was running at 14%. It is important to note that the crucial imports upon which America has thus come to depend are not exotic items, but rather the very most basic sinews of industry - metals such as iron, copper, lead, zinc and bauxite, and fuels such as petroleum. With iron ore, a resource that America at one time prided herself upon having in limitless quantities, the dependency ratio is now over 40%; by the year 2000 it is estimated that three-quarters of all the iron consumed in American industry will have to be imported. It is not surprising, therefore, thạt American business and government scour the world for likely resources; nor is it any coincidence that one of the largest known reserves of iron ore in Asia is to be found at Xieng Khouang in Laos.
With bauxite, America relies upon foreign supplies for over 80% of her consumption. Harry Magdoff has pointed out in The Age of Imperialism (Modern Reader Paperbacks, 1969) that! "No matter how efficient industry becomes in the use of aluminium or in the extraction of alumina from bauxite, you can't make aluminium without bauxite and you can't make an airplane without aluminium. And when in the United States, 80 to 90 percent of the bauxite supply comes from foreign sources, the assurance of such supply is of crucial importance to the aluminium industry, the airplane industry, and the country's military power." U.S. aluminium interests were among the first to seek concessions when Indonesia was thrown open to foreign capital again after the fall of Sukarno, massacre of the KI, and coming to power of the right-wing generals.
America also imports all of its tin, 95% of its manganese (essential in steel production), more than 90% of its antimony, beryllium, and chromium ores, more than 85% of its nickel, and about 55% of its zine and lead. Conversely, Asia can supply, inter alia, tin from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand; manganese from India, Indonesia and Japan; beryllium from India; nickel from Indonesia; and oil from Burma, Indonesia and Brunei. Indian ore reserves, at 54.2 tons per capita, are now in excess of those of the United States (41.0 tons per capita); an Indian revolution on the Chinese pattern would be a major disaster for the American steel industry in the long-term perspective.
Breaking down the data another way, as Magdoff has done, it becomes clear that the situation is particularly pressing when one considers the strategic and critical materials essential to America's war potential. For 38 of the 62 materials taken to be critical, from 80% to 100% has to be imported; for 52 of thé 62 at least 40% is supplied from abroad. Furthermore, and this is a factor of the utmost significance in considering American imperialism today, three-quarters of the imported strategie materials come from the underdeveloped countries. This is a striking measure of the importance to the United States of preserving the existing frontiers of her Empire, and goes far to explaining the desperate war she has waged in Vietnam. Fresh in the minds of U.S. rulers is the experience of Japan in the second world war: what first and foremost doomed Japanese imperialism was its failure to secure vital supplies of oil, bauxite, rubber, nickel, tin,. cobalt, lead, vanadium and other commodities.
It appears abundantly clear from the above that raw materials will continue for the foreseeable future to be one of the most powertul imperatives of modern imperialism The converse consideration, of course, is continuing pillage and resource-depletion of those countries ear-marked for the role of passive suppliers of raw materials. To the credit of American policy-makers, they freely admit the rationale of their foreign economic policy when pressed (see, for example, the remarkably frank statement by Walt Rostow to a Congressional Subcommittee on Foreign Economic Policy, quoted by Magdoff, p.54); in this they differ from orthodox Western economists, whose staggering naivety blinds them to the realities of imperialism and neo-colonialism in the mode modern world.
At this juncture, it is worthwhile contemplating what precisely resource-depletion entails for the so-called "under-developed" countries. It is not possible to be dogmatic in advancing estimates of comparative resource endowment. However, those who have sifted the available evidence with the greatest care tend to the view that the present "under-developed" countries were not as well endowed by nature with raw material resources as were the countries that have already succeeded in industrialising (see, for example, G. Myrdal: Asian Drama, Penguin Books, 1968). It is true that a number of countries without significantly rich natural resources have succeeded in the past in industrialising-Switzerland, Denmark and Japan, for instance--but as Myrdal points out, the difficulties in relying upon imported raw materials are greatest at the beginning of industrialisation, and are probably more severe in any case for those that come later upon the scene.
If one accepts that the original resource endowment of many of the presently poor countries was not equal to that of many of the industrialised countries, their historical pillage assumes even graver significance. To attain their present inflated living standards the imperialist countries not only exhausted many of their own resources but came increasingly to rely upon resources plundered from the tricontinents. In order to maintain the momentum of their economic growth today, these same countries must frantically comb the earth for the raw materials which alone make this possible. At the same time, everywhere throughout the neo-colonies awareness is growing that this continuing plunder puts their own long-term prospects for economic development in greater jeopardy. To fight for one's native land increasingly assumes a literal meaning!
In particular, it is necessary to look closely at a key group of resources: the fos. sil fuels. As is well known, industrialisation and the high average living standards it makes possible, are dependent upon combustion in one way or another of the fossil fuels- principally coal and oil. The concomitantly high productivity of agriculture in the developed countries (and in their food-and raw material-supplying enclaves elsewhere) is also dependent upon combustion of fossil fuels in innumerable ways (for example, in the production of fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, agricultural machinery, fencing, etc.). In other words, the world's present population is maintained by progressively reducing what is, in effect, a finite real capital resource. It is worth considering the implications of this in more detail.
It is clearly necessary in the first place to attempt to assess the real extent of the fossil fuel resources. This is by no means an easy easy task. The Seventh World Petroleum Congress, 1967, estimated recoverable petroleum reserves at 6,200 x 109 barrels. At the then annual consumption of 8 x 10° barrels per annum, these reserves would last 775 years. However, annual consumption is in fact rising very rapidly, having doubled over each of the last decades. If one assumes a continuation of at least this rate of increase in consumption, the 775 year reprieve shrinks very substantially, as a little simp arithmetic will quickly show, to a few de ades, in fact But there.is another factor. Not all par of the world have been equally well prosp ted. The Times reported on 11 Septembe 1969: "By comparing more or less unexplored parts of the world with more or le: explored parts, estimates have been made that suggest that the world's ultimate reserves may be ten times greater than toda plentiful reserves ... Present known reserv measured against forecasts of demand, would all be consumed in 20 years. If one were to postulate that reserves in 20 years should be large enough to support the the production level for 20 years, some 520 billion barrels of new reserves would need be established that is, at an average rate 26 billion barrels a year. This is considera less than has been achieved in the past sev ral years. Ten years ago about four barrel new reserves were being established for every barrel produced, and today more the three barrels of new reserves are found for each barrel produced, in spite of doubled production."
This analysis would seem to postpone t problem indefinitely. But note that, despi intensifying prospecting activities with mo and more refined and perfected methods, the ratio of new barrels of reserves estab lished to each barrel actually extracted is declining. Moreover, consumption is not only rising-it is rising at an accelerating rate: 1968 production and consumption showed an increase of 94% over 1967, wh prior to that the annual average rate of growth in the 1960s had been 74%. It see clear that the rate of consumption-and therefore of indicated production-must continue to rise. One reason is that the world's food problems point to greatly in creased consumption of petroleum-not o for such obvious purposes as supplying en gy for the production of fertilisers, pesticides, tools, fencing, etc., but also for the direct production of synthetic carbohydra and other foodstuffs. A great deal of euph ria has been unthinkingly generated by spe alists who have predicted wonders in store for the human diet by harnessing petroleut fuel reserves, with their chemical riches ex tracted from the environment and concentrated in bygone centuries. The euphoria is quite unjustified, unfortunately, since the magnitude of the petroleum reservesalready, as we have seen, ominously finite for present more orthodox purposes-by n means matches the magnitude of the world hunger problem. (World population is ex ted to double from 3.6 billion to 7.2 billic by the end of the present century; allowin for present inadequate nutritional levels world food production-traditional and unconventional-would have to multiply several times over from the present level if adequate diets for all were to be establishe by the year 2000.) N. W. Pirie, the distinguished British bio-chemist, recognises this when urging concentration on coal instead and in a recent work he cites an estimate that peak petroleum production might be attained in the next decade-before 1980 that is (Food Resources, Conventional and Novel, Penguin Books, 1969, p. 156).
As far as coal is concerned, the reserve , situation would appear to be more favour able. However, even here we are talking about finite resources, and inevitably as pe roleum production reaches and passes its maximum, coal consumption will accelerat Moreover, coal reserves are very badly distr buted: the U.S. and the USSR appear to have the largest reserves in the world, whil Britain, Germany, China, Poland, South Africa, Canada and Colombia seem possess of satisfactory stocks; on the other hand, proved deposits are small or negligible in most parts of Latin America, Africa, and South and South East Asia. This maldistrib tion is the more ominous, of course, in tha three-quarters of the known petroleum reserves lie in precisely these coal-poor areas (British Petroleum's statistical review of th world oil industry, 1967, cited Daily Telegraph, 8/8/67). The more the rich industri countries gamble on economies powered b oil, the more they must intensify their sack and pillage of the poor countries, deprivin them of their oil, and leaving them progres
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criticisms in this article, including some of the most crucially serious ones, were