Document 31 - S.O.Y.A. National Executive Committee, The Maritzburg Conferences and the Tasks of the Immediate Future, 31 May 1959

From: South Africa's Radical Tradition, a documentary history, Volume Two 1943 - 1964, by Allison Drew

Document 31 - S.O.Y.A. National Executive Committee, The Maritzburg Conferences and the Tasks of the Immediate Future, 31 May 1959

[...] We must proceed to consider the basic general ideological concepts of the Unity Movement, on which we impeach and indite this defected clique with treachery and desertion before the toiling masses of the Non-European oppressed. Reduced to their essence these major general concepts, by which the N.E. Unity Movement has always stood before the oppressed people of S.Africa, and which today are being betrayed by the defected clique are:-

1. Our concept of building Non-European Unity and National Unity by which alone liberation can be achieved in this country, and the foundation of a true S. Africa Nation laid; the truly united nation of a future liberated S. Africa which should no longer be cursed with and viciated by artificially fostered racial prejudices, sec-tari­anism, and an anarchical exploitative social order where man lives off man.

2. Our Land Demand by which we certainly demand no "free right to buy the land", where the African peasantry kraaled off in the Land Reserves, is so obviously poverty stricken, but by which we specifically demand "a new division of the land in accordance with the whole population that lives on and works the land"; and implied in which demand is a categorical rejection of both the system of Land Reserves and the so called White Areas out of the rest of the land surface of S. Africa.

3. Our Workers' Demand, by which we certainly cannot mean that the exploited segregated non-white workers can end their particularly intensified exploitation through the colour bar, by having to buy and own industry too through "a free right to buy"; but by which we definitely demand the ending of all labour segregation, a free right to seek work, to acquire skills, equal opportunity, equal pay for equal work, to be protected by labour legislation in all industries, and to form trade unions; all these as minimum demands towards the establishment of complete equality between the buyer and seller of labour, and towards "the ending of all oppression and all exploitation".

4. Our Full Vision of the Ten-Point Programme, by which the Ten-Point Programme is certainly no maximum programme or the very end of our liberation; but a minimum programme to build up a National Movement in S. Africa, with all the social groups to be found among the Non-European oppressed brought together in a common struggle against Herrenvolkism and imperialism for true liberation; and a minimum programme which stakes the basic minimum demands to which we the Non-European oppressed pledge ourselves for the only true foundation or starting point to build up a future democratic society in S. Africa, towards the fullest or the very maximum conditions of a really liberated people in this country. We accept no other basic or foundational starting point as a true one less than this minimum programme.

[,...] in the course of the last two years, the defected A.A.C. leadership has skillfully sought to build up certain new and alien concepts of mental enslavement which have been particularly against the youth intelligentsia, out of whom, it has been clear, that the intention had always been to turn out permanent nodding-shadows who were for ever to hero-worship the defectors. Thus in these last two years this clique of the defected A.A.C. leadership has built up the whole mumbo-jumbo of "the wise and revered parentage of the movement," "the unquestionable age-seniors," the repulsive nausea of "the humble and ever unquestioning youth." This new religion has been built up very ruthlessly and has been particularly directed against the youth intelligentsia in the S.O.Y.A. The purpose was clear, that it was to break the intellectual development of the S.O.Y.A. once and for all, and thus possibly secure the permanent grip of the defectors over the All-African Convention. As a whole National organisation of intellectuals and organisers the S.O.Y.A. has been a special threat to the defecting A.A.C. leadership, for indeed it has been the desperate purpose of these defectors possibly to desert with the name of some organisation as an historical cloak for ever to cover up their treachery before the eyes of the masses of the oppressed people.

On finally reaching their bogus 1958 Maritzburg Conference, the defected A.A.C. leadership fashioned out a special fascist committee called a credentials' committee. This committee was never a creature of a free decision of genuine delegations to an All-African Convention Conference. But to all wonder, it was a product of the socalled Executive of the Convention. Right at what should have been a Conference, the highest deciding body of a political organisation, we thus found a degenerated bureaucratic Executive who now hence-forth meant to decide for the very Conference itself. Then the alien fascist committee was given all the ruthless functions to judge upon and refuse credentials of the very people's organisations themselves which came to Conference, and it was later to be seen, this fascist screening was to be applied against the very old affiliated organisations of the Convention. [....]

The bogus Conference was further packed in every possible unscrupulous manner. The mean and base connections and deception exploited to bring many of the unknowing peasantry as a socalled delegation to this sham Conference, have since been uncovered. [”¦]

In the deliberations themselves shameless bureaucracy was used by those in the chair to muzzle and gag all free discussion by the progressives, while the defectors gave themselves all the time not even to contribute but to lecture their special diatribes onto the fettered delegations. All the progressives who meant to uncover the betrayal and desertion of the defected leadership were rigidly muzzled in the course of all the discussions.

Then came the final attempt to begin sacking certain active progressive organisations from the Convention. Once more decision was taken and announced from above by the ruthless fascist junta who continued to mask themselves behind the name of an Executive of the Convention, that this clique of a defected official leadership of the All-African Convention, was, on the basis of evidence manufactured by its socalled credentials committee, hence-forth expelling the following organisations from the All-African Convention: - The New Era Fellowship, the Cape Flats Educational Fellowship, the Langa Educational Fellowship, and the Wits branch of the S.O.Y.A. Like the so many other decrees of the bogus gathering these so-called expulsions from the Convention were also decided from above [....] In particular not definite ideological questions were ever tabled before a full open discussion of a genuine free Conference of the Convention against these organisations. Thus no genuine and free Convention of the All-African Convention was ever constituted to consider and decide on a full discussion on definite ideological questions tabled against these organisations. [....]

Then the developing collaboration and fraternization was soon followed by an expressed attitude against the role of the masses in the National Movement. Hence A.C. Jordan recorded their harm and undesirability as they might soon invite serious persecution and prosecutions from the ruling Herrenvolk; and since the 1956 A.A.C. Conference the whole clique began to set itself against the role of the workers in the National Movement. In the course of the last two years L. Sihlali was to betray the motives of this enemity in the typical naive fashion that "the workers were of too radical an outlook" to be allowed their due class significance in the National Movement, and Jane Gool was also to play her own role when she blurted out in Natal that "those who want to organise a class-conscious urban working class have no place in the National Movement". [....]

With the interests of the masses thus renounced in the struggle, then nationalism or colour-group politics becomes the convenient opium of the Middle Classes with which to rally the ignorant masses onto behind their colour-leadership, irrespective of the class material interests of that leadership. Nationalism is therefore a convenient ideology of the Middle Classes, by which these classes always blur off class material interests and thus hope to deceive the toiling masses of the people to rally onto their cause, without ever making class material interests an issue. Tsotsi has already announced that, "like" all Middle Classes, their Revisionist group are prepared to exploit the popular sentiment of nationalism, provided they will always be strong enough to control it not to assume an "Anti-White" character - apparently against their senior Herrenvolk class col­leagues, and the condition he thus lays down is only logical for a political band who mean particularly to go out of all their way to allay the suspicions of the ruling Herrenvolk, in order ultimately to reconcile it with surity of common material interests onto a common multi-racial society. We here wish to restate the traditional outlook of the Unity Movement, that nationalism forever remains the deceptive ideology of the Middle Classes, for masquerading for a following of the masses for the people, without ever allowing class material interests to come to the foreground of our politics. The masses of the people have no need for nationalist politics. Their material conditions of exploitation are always self-evident enough as never to require any extra sentiments of colour-sensation and chauvinism, in order to bring forward the grim lesson of building up a political struggle. [....]

It is obvious that the more acute grows the struggle of the colonial people in both Africa and Asia, Imperialism too will constantly try to perfect this own counter methods to save its world stake. The system of prefect independencies began with India, was extended to Egypt, and now lately it has reached Ghana. Already in its days of West Africa, it has given birth to its other offshoots of "partnership" and "multi-racialism", for application in those countries where the imperialist population cannot possibly be withdrawn anymore for some groomed colonial prefectships; and in all these tactics of imperialism the colonial Middle Classes, trading under the banner of popular nationalism, are the special target to groom out for a compromise. It is therefore clear that in the circumstances of that kind of future, the colonial national movement can only save themselves for true liberation by elaborating our ideology clearer and clearer in the dominant and decisive interests of the masses of the oppressed people. In the general perspectives of a whole continent where the colonial Middle Classes are coming under the banner of popular nationalism for a decisive deal with imperialism, then the progressive movements can only save themselves by building a clearer position amongst the masses of the oppressed peoples. [....]

The modern world urban working class occupies the position of the basic social however on which is directly supported the whole modern world economy built up by capitalism-imperialism. This is a completely dispossessed class; no longer bluffed by any proprietorship however meagre or token; but who specifically have to live by the daily marketing of their labour power to the private owners of present social industries. They are the very lifeblood of the present world capitalist industry, and the producers of the daily bill of profits of the private owners of that industry. If a peasantry still exists in the colonial countries for exploitation too, it has to be appreciated that it can also be exploited only via the position of the urban working class through a migratory labour system. Hence the land policy of the colonial Herrenvolk which is specifically designed in order to smoke out regular migratory labour out of the colonial peasantry. [....]

In this particular position, the world urban working class logically takes the leadership of the whole world struggle against present oppressive and exploitative society. It is the ideology of this class which becomes the only true ideology of social change in the modern world. Having lived the life of daily exploitation, its interests immediately correspond with that radical demand "to end all oppression and all exploitation," and it becomes a champion of the interests of all the toiling masses against oppression and exploitation. It is therefore the ideology of the world urban working class truly representing the interest of all the toiling masses which alone we allow to interpret, elaborate and develop the Ten-Point Programme of the N.E. Unity, and build up a national struggle in S. Africa. This is the programme of a definite progressive movement, which, however, is not presented for a single-class struggle such as a labour movement, a “national struggle” in colonial South Africa. Its full vision is to bring together all the social groups to be found amongst the Non-European oppressed, but for true liberation. Members of the Non-European Middle Classes are obliged to the national movement, because in any case they are an oppressed social group too like the whole non-white population, but they have to be pledged to true liberation and the ending of all oppression and all exploitation. In particular they cannot still aspire for a repeat or continued exploitative society. Like all the other social groups they too are acceptable on definite ideological conditions to the national movement, and those conditions are those which should forever flow from our uncompromiseable demand to end all oppression and all exploitation for true liberation in South Africa. In conclusion we would therefore like at establish that the interests of the toiling masses are the dominant ones in the national movement. [....]

We would like to end up this statement with a certain commentary and suggestions on practical organisational tasks. [....]

In the urban centres we shall expect all organisational tasks immediately to follow the pattern of the Vigilance Associations, while in the rural villages they should take that of Village Associations.

The concept of Village Associations amongst the peasantry should be able immedi­ately to bring forward the lesson, in the mind of the peasant, that the rural village is a single unit even though so scattered. It is capable of wielding a single independent organisation of the whole village just as the traditional village assembly or the present church have always done. Needless, of course, to say that in the vernaculars the Village Association will carry exactly the same concept of Iso-lomZi as the urban vigilances.

With particular regard to the organisational tasks amongst the rural population we must here reject a certain bankrupt and dead idea which, however unenunciated all along, has succeeded to make itself the practised official policy in this section of the population. In the 1958 A.A.C. conference some of the delegates from the towns took particular trouble to discuss some of the observable questions at present in the organisation of the peasantry. In the course of 1958 it had come to our notice that a socalled A.A.C. Regional Conference had been convened in Lady Frere. Many people came from various villages in a side area of the Transkei. It did become clear that nearly all those socalled delegates to the socalled regional conference under the name of the A.A.C., had come either as individuals representing the mere unorganized rural village or as representatives of some committee which had been established as the permanent standing political committee of some village. An attempt was therefore made in the socalled 1958 Conference to bring up the question of peasant organisation. An effort was particularly made to bring it to the notice of the peasantry themselves at conference, that however political work was begun in the peasant villages as in the urban commu­nities the clear purpose must always be ultimately to found standing mass people's organisations. It is not just the unorganised village or some small committee of select men which should be the final and lasting basis of our political struggle in a village, but a definite mass people's organisation. [....]

Only the direct purpose of founding mass people's organisations in the peasant villages has all the dynamics immediately to bring the whole population of the village into the political struggle. Then and then alone is a real democratic organisation of the people brought into being. Its standing Village Committee then becomes a duly elected democratic committee with an actual organisation of the people behind it. It avoids becoming leader-cult, self-conscious, itinerant bureaucrats who feel themselves to have undertaken to preach a salvation cause onto a passive village mass, but becomes a real working institution of the village people. Finally such people's organisation can always bring up successive generations of its own leadership, and make the struggle ever acquire greater and greater momentum in the village. That is how we mean the Soya to undertake organisational work amongst the peasantry in the new period.

In general there is no need to expect some favourable previous influence of the ideas of the Unity Movement in an area before a Vigilance Association or Village Association can be instigated with confidence. An organizing committee of some few initial recruits made out through personal contact, is the first step towards the founding of a mass people’s organisation in any village, whether urban or rural. Once collected this committee immediately proclaims itself a Vigilance or Village Association organizing committee and begins regular theoretical and organisational work towards the foundation of the actual mass people's organisation of the whole village. It holds regular study groups on topical and relevant matters, does active recruiting to swell up its own numbers, and already begins issuing agitational leaflets on arising issues to the whole village. As all the work of this committee gains momentum then the organisers can see when they can successfully attempt a fair public meeting to establish the actual people's organisation of the whole village. Even this actual people's organisation of the whole village may not initially have any impressive numbers. A real mass following is always the product of time and much patient work, and the start is always a humble one. But the secret of initiative is precisely that this start must be made however humble. [....]

It is therefore against the full background of this leaflet that we expect the whole Soya and all the progressives in the A.A. Convention to work in the new period. We have completely rejected and disowned the whole hitherto official A.A.C. leadership as deserters from the Non-European Unity Movement and capitulators to the Herrenvolk [....] We categorically say to all the masses of the African people and all the Non- European oppressed that this clique no longer represents the All-African Convention anywhere in South Africa [....] We of the Soya therefore here and now pledge ourselves to the work for "a reassembly and to rebuild the All-African Convention."

ISSUED BY:

THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE General Secretary

OF S.VUTELA,

THE SOCIETY OF YOUNG AFRICA. 775 MOFOLO, JOHANNESBURG.