Document 64 - Letter from the Workers’ Party of South Africa to the International Secretariat of the International Communist League (B-L), 1 July 1936

From: South Africa's Radical Tradition, a documentary history, Volume One 1907 - 1950, by Allison Drew

Document 64 - Letter from the Workers' Party of South Africa to the International Secretariat of the International Communist League (B-L), 1 July 1936

                                                                                                                                               1st July 1936.

To the I.S.

L.C.I. (B.L.)

Dear Comrade Adolphe,

In answer to your enquiries in your letter of 10th May 1936 I am giving you some particulars.

The Workers Party consists of two small branches at Cape Town and at Johannesburg.

As a distance of one thousand miles separates us each branch is practically self contained and there is no national leadership in the sense of a single committee controlling both. The functions of the General Secretary are confined to external relations (with the I.S., etc) rather than to the internal relationships within the party. Our unity is based theoretically on the common acceptance of the principles contained in the theses written by Comrade Burlak and organisationally upon the fraternal exchange of minutes of meetings, correspondence and a common support for the "Spark," which continues to be produced in Cape Town under the control of an editorial committee of Cape Town comrades.

The Communist League exists only in Cape Town and the Johannesburg branch of the Workers Party has allowed the policy of leaving all decisions and negotiations between the two sections to the discretion of the Cape Town comrades. We have taken sides against the Communist League only on the basis of their published theoretical divergences from the principles espoused by the Workers Party.

Discussions within the Workers Party have centered in the Native Bills introduced into Parliament by the present United Party Government which consists of an alliance of the wealthy Boer landowners with British Imperialism. In the matter of the Native Bills a difference has a risen between the attitude taken by the Cape Town branch as published in the "Spark" and the attitude of the Johannesburg branch as expressed in the enclosed article which has been submitted to the Spark as a discussion article. There has been some friction between the branches on the matter of the divergent points of view but this I think has been due more to misunderstanding than to actual differences.

These misunderstandings will probably be liquidated by means of further discussion. At the time of writing there is being held in Bloemfontein an All African Convention to which all political organisations that have non-European members are sending non-European representatives. Three representatives of our party are attending. There is a movement a foot to transform this Convention into a permanent national organisation "representing the interests of the native people". In the growth of this movement there are distinct possibilities for a revolutionary wing, provided that the development of our party keeps pace with the up.swing in the broad masses. The Communist Party has already committed itself to a people's front policy of collaboration with the native reformists. Thus it is upon our grouping that the task falls of providing the core of the left wing in name as well as in actuality.

Our efforts have been bent mainly on the task of surrounding ourselves with the beginnings of a proletarian party. With agonising slowness we have added to our circles one by one and this has meant direct personal propaganda. Where in other countries a kind of clearing has been effected by the liberal bourgeoisie, by reformists, by Stalinists, we are in this country faced to a large extent by virgin jungle. It is not difficult to reach those who have already had some grounding in political theory, but these make up altogether only a tiny handful - among natives only a few intellectuals have the necessary grasp of the language to be reached by our written propaganda and these few are subjected to an ideological bombardment from the churches, the Chamber of Mines, the bourgeois nigrophiles and the African nationalists, not to mention the privileges which Imperialism is enabled by its incredible super profits to dole out to submissive native leaders. ("good boys.")

Our activities up to now in Johannesburg have consisted in establishing a popular central workers club, the Spartacus Club, with a fair sized hall, with social and educational activities in addition to daily lunch hour propaganda lectures and classes and with lectures every evening. Branch circles have been set up in Pretoria, (40 miles distant), Nigel (40 Miles), and Orlando, (the largest native workers district in the vicinity of Johannesburg). These circles are as yet unstable. Attempts at trade union organisation and the formation of workers' councils (vigilance committees for redress of local grievances) in the native townships have so far met with little success. Similar activities are carried on by the Cape Town comrades.

We hope to issue a printed paper in native languages in the coming months. The publication of a popular agitational paper in the native languages and the carrying out of a planned organising tour in the surrounding districts will enable us to emerge as a party; up to now we have had merely a pre-natal existence.

The main task that confronts the proletarian party once revolutionary cadres are established, is the organising of the totally unorganised native miners who number 300.000 on the Rand alone. The native miners union, given revolutionary leadership is the battering ram that will smash down British Imperialism in South Africa: in our present isolation it is almost too audacious even to dream of initiating this colossal task. The native miners are recruited from the "reserves" and their periods in the mines are ten months episodes - nightmares - in a "normal" existence on the insufficient scraps of land where their families are located. They are almost out of reach of propaganda not only through ideological difficulties, (language, illiteracy, political inexperience and backwardness)but also through physical difficulties-they are virtually imprisoned in the "compounds" under police guard most of the time they are above ground.

On the other hand, the intense concentration of numbers ensures the rapid spread of militant revolutionary doctrines once they are introduced. The experience of past movements, (the African National Congress, the I.C.U.) has demonstrated that a revolutionary platform propagated by a determined band of agitators finds enthusiastic support among the miners. Both the A.N.C. and the I.C.U., after an initial revolutionary flowering, degenerated into reformism and consequently decayed as rapidly as they rose. There are the first signs now of a revolutionary upsurge among the native workers (isolated spontaneous strikes, an increased confidence due to the trade revival and the diminishing of unemployment,) and so the totally discredited A.N.C. and I.C.U. leaders are leaping forward to seize the reins. Hence the necessity for the formation of a revolutionary wing in the All African Convention in which this political awakening is first manifesting itself. These are the immediate perspectives of our Party.

As to languages we can understand French and German but not Russian; naturally we prefer English to all the other languages.

I hope in future reports to fill out the rather sketchy outlines of this preliminary letter.

                                                                                                                                         Yours fraternally,

                                                                                                                                      General Secretary.