of Zambia (Time magazine, 28 June 1976).
Imperialist strategy for southern Africa has once again received a severe blow during the past two weeks with the outburst of struggles against the racist Vorster regime.
Though the comparison has been made, the present developments around Soweto are of far greater importance than Sharpeville. Then the racist regime was able to inflict a rapid defeat upon the masses in a period when the balance of forces on a world scale, and particularly in southern Africa, was more unfavourable than today.
But in the context of the general upsurge of the masses in southern Africa, in the context of the defeat of South Africa's intervention in Angola, and in the context of the tremendous confidence inspired by these events, the Soweto struggle immediately poses the question of the survival of this bastion of capitalism in Africa - the racist state of South Africa.
The dilemma for Vorster and imperialism is classic: how to give an inch without losing a mile'? For example the policy of bantustanisation' (the creation of so-called independent states which amount to no more than mass labour reserve camps) cannot be reversed in spite of the d= deep telt resentment against it by blacks. It can't be reversed because this would pose the question of grantwould be strongly opposed by the right wing verkrampte whites - and more importantly would also create deep resentment among the privileged white workers upon whose support the Vorster regime depends. "This is the voice of reason for which the world has been waiting' -description of Vorster's policy of detente by President Kaunda Nevertheless, imperialism is becoming adamant that some means most be found to defuse the enormous upsurge that has taken place in the recent period. It is clear that some political concessions will have to be granted to achieve this, and pressure is already being placed on Vorster to set up at least the mechanism for some constitutional negotiations with "tribal chieftains' or similar puppets.
ARMED The developments around Soweto have thrown to the forefront many extremely important issues concerning the development of the struggle in southern Africa. Not least of these is obviously the question of the revolutionary leadership of the masses.
Clearly these struggles posed the way forward against the racist policies of the state: mass mobilisations that are a generalised offensive against the state and its organs -the schools, pass book offices, etc. But immediately posed in such a mobilisation — as is posed in any mobilisation in South Africa, even in simple economic strikes - is the question of armed self-defence.
On this crucial question, the African National Congress (ANC) -an 'alliance' of various organisations, including the South African Communist Party (SACP), which describes ing political rights to the blacks, which itself as a liberation movement has only the answer of an 'armed wing' taking up a strategy of guerilla warfare. Besides being utopian in its concept of 'guerilla war' to "liberate' South Africa, this strategy has a substitutionist concept of against apartheid the police, struggle, or armed struggle on behalf of the masses.
Dominated at present by the E SACP (the world is no longer monopolised by the imperialist world system... the struggle must approach' - ANC's Strategy and Tactics), it is unable to answer the real questions that are raised by Soweto. Its statements so far have been of the "I-told-you-so' variety.
SHOCKED As Winnie Mandela said in the July edition of Africa: 'Naturally we are shocked by the situation: however, this is precisely what we nave predicted woud be tne outcome of the Nationalist regime's laws in this country .... But we are aware that there are those whites been anti-white.' the national character of dominate our who are concerned for the future of this country and who realise that at no stage of our struggle have we This statement reveals two things. First is the notable reluctance to make the central focus for mass mobilisation against racism. Yet that is the single issue upon which there would be the widest possible mobilisation and which would immediately pose the question of the state. It was no surprise that the outburst of the struggles in Soweto was accompanied by the slogan: Amandla Soweto - 'Power to Soweto'.
The reluctance to pose the question of racism is clearly linked to the second implication of Winnie Mandela's statement - that the ANC is the only liberation movement, and as such must be the force primarily involved in any future negotiations with the regime.
As such it reveals a strong illusion that the Vorster regime will legalise the AN in order to negotiate with it. To do so would in fact meet with rampant opposition from the verkrampte whites, who are acutely aware of the presence of the SACP ir the ranks of the ANC, and Vorster would therefore have to be very hard pressed even to consider such a step There can be no doubt, however, that this is the perspective of the ANC leadership, and that they will place themselves at the head of struggles that break out only to use this radicalised mass base in order to achieve gains at the top. Already they have been vehement in their denials that the SACP dominates the Congress. The latest edition of African Communist, the organ of the SACP, comments: "The slander that the ANC is run by the Commu nist Party is not something new; it has always been spread by the racists and those who act as their agents.' Even the SACP, it seems, is bent on
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