Related Collections from the Archive
Related content
From: South Africa's Radical Tradition, a documentary history, Volume One 1907 - 1950, by Allison Drew
Document 79 - "What is the Communist Party? Lesson 4: What will be Done in the Bantu Republic?", Umsebenzi, 17 March 1934
In our last lesson we spoke of the Bantu or Native Republic of South Africa, for which the African workers and peasants will fight under the leadership of the Communist Party. We must now answer two questions. Pirstly, what will be done in the Bantu Republic, what will it give to the workers and peasants, how will it help the Bantu? Secondly, how will the Bantu Republic be brought about? In this lesson we shall answer the first of these questions.
The Bantu republic will do away with the racial oppression of the Bantu. It will make South Africa an independent country, not ruled over by the English or any other imperialists. It will mean that the black majority will have MAJORITY RIGHTS in their own country. It will mean "Mayibuye", the return of the land to the Bantu people, from whom it has been stolen by the imperialists. The Bantu Republic will use the land, the mines, the riches of South Africa for the good of all the workers and toiling people in South Africa, both black and white. It will fight against the imperialist oppressors and will not allow them any longer to rob the people of this country. When people are oppressed because they belong to a certain nationality, they do not only ask for equal rights, but also the right to rule themselves: because they thank that this is the only way to make sure that they will not be oppressed. And so the Bantu are asking and will ask more and more for the right to rule themselves, to have their own government of black people. (The Dutch Afrikaners also said in the past that they were oppressed by the English and they wanted an Afrikaner Government.) The Bantu know that while they are ruled over by another race they will never be sure that they will not suffer because of the colour of their skins. Therefore the Communist Party fights for the right of the Bantu to rule themselves; therefore it fights for an independent Bantu republic.
In this republic for the first time the Bantu will be able to enjoy real freedom as a nation in South Africa. They will be able to come and go freely without passes. They will not be kept out anywhere on account of their colour, neither from the schools and universities, nor from the trams and trains, nor from the cafes and bioscopes and towns halls, nor from the libraries and museums and zoos. There will be no law to stop the Bantu becoming skilled workers and engineers, lawyers, doctors, magistrates and judges, professors and directors of business and industry. Of course at first there will be very few black men and women about to do the most highly skilled work, because the Bantu under imperialism have not been allowed to enter the schools and universities and become skilled workers like the whites. But this will only be at the beginning. Very soon thousands of Bantu will take advantage ofthe schools and factories which will be open to them under the Bantu Republic, and they will begin to push their way up and to show what they can do. All this will be possible only when there is a Bantu Government and not before.
In industry the Bantu Republic will also bring big changes in the life of the black, coloured and Indian workers. For the first time they will have the right to organise into trade unions, and once they have this right they will be able to improve their wages and conditions a great deal. The land workers will no longer suffer under the sjambok of the farmer; the Contract Law, the Master and Servant Law, will be gone. People will no longer be forced by poll tax and land hunger and starvation to go and work down the mines. The standard ofliving ofthe Non-European workers will increase. The Bantu Proletariat will grow stronger. The differences between white and black workers will grow less. A united proletariat fighting for socialism will come into being.
The life of the peasants will also change very much. The land will be taken away from the rich land-owners and imperialists and every Bantu peasant and his family will be able to have as much land as they can use. The Land Act of 1913, which does not allow Bantu to own land except in reserves, will be gone. Everyone who wants land will be able to get it, and so no one will have to starve. The people's government will help the peasants in many ways, with ploughs and tractors and oxen and seed and with irrigation works. The whole nation will unite to fight the drought and the locusts, and these pests will no longer cause misery and death to thousands.