Document 53 - M. Harmel, “Observations on Certain Aspects of Imperialism in South Africa”, Viewpoints and Perspectives, 1, 3, February 1954

Document 53 - M. Harmel, "Observations on Certain Aspects of Imperialism in South Africa", Viewpoints and Perspectives, 1, 3, February 1954

[....] TWO NATIONS

[....] On the one hand the most superficial observer can detect all the main features of advanced monopoly capitalism flourishing in South Africa. Cecil Rhodes set a prece­dent when, having cornered the diamond market and amassed a fortune, he did not go "home" to England but settled in this country to be a "big frog in a little pond" and to enjoy in public life those political plums which other pirates of his stature assign to paid agents. Though massive investments from overseas continue to predominate in the Unions mining and other key industries, the section of the bourgeois monopolist class which has settled more or less permanently in the Union has become as "native" and fixed a feature of the local picture as this essentially cosmopolitan gang can ever be. Though closely linked with and, in an exceptional way, dependent on foreign-Anglo American - imperialism, this group corresponds closely in its relationship to the Union's economy and polity to the position enjoyed by monopoly capitalism in other imperialist countries. The white "secondary industry" bourgeoisie, middle and profes­sional classes, and "labour aristocracy" also (with certain significant modifications to be discussed just now) correspond to their counter parts, in, say, England or America.

On the other hand, there is no qualitative difference between the status of the Africans (and, in the main, the other non-white population groups) in the Union and those elsewhere-in Africa - and the people of any other colonial territory. "Colonial" living standards, deprivation of political rights and constitutional liberties, the deliberate efforts to prevent their economic and cultural developments - all these are characteristic of colonialism.

Similarly, the relationship between the white rulers of South Africa and the non-white masses is essentially imperialistic. No concessions here, no pretence even at representing the will of the people.

In a word: there are two nations in South Africa occupying the same state, side by side in the same area. White South Africa is a semi-independent imperialist state: Black South Africa is its colony. This almost unique dualism of South Africa has its roots in our history. (I say "almost unique" because obviously Rhodesia and parts North are developing a similar pattern today).

TWO PATTERNS

Two main patterns of colonial domination by European over non-European countries may be observed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Ӣ In Asia, and Africa, north of the Cape colony, the ruling classes of Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, etc., were concerned predominantly with the seizure and transport back home of natural wealth (including people, as slaves) of these countries. [....]

Ӣ In North America and Australia, although colonisation began with the same aim, a second aim developed which was to have the most fateful consequences. One of the fruits of the development of capitalism (the "industrial revolution") in Britain and other West European countries was the destitution of millions of peasants, driven from the land. No amount of "pass laws" and "influx control" could prevent the steady drift of these masses of starving and desperate people to the towns. Industry, however rapidly developed, could not absorb them. The Governments decided to get rid of thousands of these unwanted surplus proletarians by shipping them abroad to "the colonies" - above all to North America and Australia. [....]

Two quite separate types of colonial countries emerged from these different processes. In colonies of the first type, such as India and Central African territories, the Europeans came not as dispossessing "settlers," but as administrators, civil servants, missionaries, police chiefs, plantation managers and overseers, and the like. They came not to settle and found dynasties, but to get rich quick and go home. They left the native populations, for the most part, in the possession of their lives, and much of their land. In colonies of the second type, such as North America, and Australia, the white colonists organised ruthless warfare against the indigenous peoples. By force and fraud they deprived them of their ancestral land. By massacres and starvation they all but exterminated them.

These two types of colonies followed different types of economic development. In colonies of the first type while force was exercised to ensure a sufficient supply of labour for imperialist owned plantations and mines, the capitalist evolution of the colonial economy was not encouraged. In fact, although imperialism brought into being the two classes typical of capitalism (a working class, of wage earners, and a commercial and even an industrial bourgeoisie) the imperialist leaned heavily on the pre-capitalist ruling classes (feudal princes and tribal chiefs) as a means of maintaining their hold and preserving stability. This system of so-called “indirect rule” meant that the imperialists deliberately discouraged “normal” capitalist development, deliberately preserves, and perpetuated outworn and reactionary institutions. Similarly, though they built roads, railways and harbours the Imperialists did this solely in order to get the natural wealth out of the country, not to foster internal development and communications. Though at first a "revolutionary force", disrupting traditional economies, impe­rialism rapidly assumed a completely reactionary role, strangling economic progress.

The White settlers in second-type colonies brought with them fully developed capitalist relationships and techniques. Once the resistance of the original, non-Euro­pean populations had been overcome, the newly-conquered territories provided ideal conditions for the very rapid development and expansion of capitalism: no feudal relationships, classes and interests stood in the way; no land-owning and serf-owning aristocracy; all goods were commodities, and all payments and wages were in money, [....]

Union not Wholly of Either Type

The Cape Colony was never really regarded by Britain as a suitable settlement for the "dumping" of surplus population. There was one attempt to establish a "New England" type of colony - in the Eastern Cape, in 1820 - and a shipload of convicts destined to be landed in Cape Town was prevented by the townsfolk from disembarking its passengers. But the determined resistance of the Africans, particularly the Xhosa people, whom the 'whole protracted series of horrible "Kaffir Wars" had failed to conquer or subdue, made the whole idea of expansion dangerous and costly; nor, prior to the discovery of gold and diamonds, did the interior appear to offer attractive rewards to imperialist adventures.

For these and other reasons South Africa did not develop along "North American" lines. The white settlers themselves (apart from the Cape coastal towns) were organised on; the basis of pre-capitalist relationships - a predominantly pastoral subsistence economy. Armed with rifle and ox-wagon they could and did conquer various tribes and establish areas of settlement; they were not strong enough to completely dispossess, still less to eliminate, the vigorous African tribes.

With the opening up of Kimberley and then the Witwatersrand, South Africa came dramatically and overwhelmingly into the picture of modem capitalist imperialism.

Problems of the Imperialists

The overseas investors who exported millions of pounds worth of capital to the Witwatersrand were faced with serious problems. To protect their investment and 10 reap the rich rewards they hoped to gain in gold, they required a stable and subservient political System. This requirement was not met by Kruger's semi-feudal fanners' republic, constantly at war with the African population, stubbornly refusing to remould itself as a bourgeois society or to accept the hegemony of the gold mining interests.

Secondly, the imperialists required a mass, stable, cheap labour force of the colonial type if they were to derive maximum profits from gold-mining. This requirement was not met either by the Boer farmers, who satisfied their limited needs on the farms, or by the African tribesmen, whose independence had not wholly been broken, and who were able to subsist economically on land held tribally, or as share-croppers and squatters on land which had been seized but not cleared by the Boers.

Victory in the Boer Wars did not, of itself, adequately solve either problem. Events ever since 1776 had proved the impossibility (and the ruinous expense) of running! colony with a settled population, on traditional lines - i.e. with an imported civil service, army, police, etc. And attempts to staff the mines with imported labour (Cornish, then Chinese) failed.

The Solution

The political and economic structure crystallised in the Act of Union provided a working answer to these problems. The white population of the Union was entrenched as a privileged oligarchy, providing a stable and reliable basis of government. The Africans were dispossessed of most of their remaining land and squatting rights, pauperized and driven by a complex of economic and legal measures, backed up by a massive police and administrative system, to sell their labour-power at sub-economic rates.

Economically, the Union of South Africa is founded on the subjection of the non-European population and the super-profits derived from the colonial-type exploi­tation of their labour. .

The imperialist-monopolist group (closely linked with British and American fi­nance-capital) which exerts a decisive influence in the country's affairs shares the fruits of cheap labour with the agricultural, industrial and commercial capitalists; the white middle-class and professional groups and the upper stratum of the white working class are also permitted to share directly and indirectly in the imperialist robbery of the non-whites (e.g. by being granted "sheltered" employment, by rather higher living standards, cheap domestic labour, exemption from heavy work, etc.).

A Few Conclusions

I have attempted to give a brief sketch of the origin and nature of the curious duality of South Africa: at one and the same time an imperialist state and a colonial country; with two populations enjoying entirely different statuses - and determined artificial apartheid measures directed against their natural tendency to integrate.

I make no apology for the tentative and preliminary nature of the treatment of this theme: its full development would of course require a substantial volume.

At the same time, it is interesting to note a few conclusions, which I think, follow from this approach.

1. In the first place, it is idle to imagine that there are any sorts of revolutionary or progressive potentialities among the white bourgeoisie in South Africa. People like E.S. Sachs who chatters about "progressive capitalism 6 or those who place their confidence in the new Liberal Party are making entirely false analogies with countries quite different in character, in historical circumstances far removed from ours. The secondary industrialists of this country are basically junior partners of imperialism; the last thing they would advocate would be the abolition of the imperialist system on which they depend.

2. Afrikaner republicanism and "anti-imperialism" (except as a bait to catch the nationalist vote) has ceased to exist as a serious political phenomenon. The pre-capitalist Boer farming economy has disappeared, become absorbed in the capitalist economy of white South Africa. The Afrikaans-farming bourgeoisie has merged with the new and rising Afrikaner industrial and financial bourgeoisie. Very much the same remarks apply to them as I have made about the secondary industrialists above. The Malanists today must be classed with Chiang Kai-Shek, Syngman Rhee and Tito as the most ardent and staunch supporters and defenders of imperialism.

3. The continuing development and growth of white capitalism in South Africa leads to an ever-increasing, insatiable demand for cheap labour (note the present grave shortage of labour in the mines) which can only be met at present by intensified repression and pressure against the African population.

4. The whole system is increasingly being challenged and threatened by the growth of the non-white national liberation movement: the advanced progressive anti-im­perialist tendency in our country. Here should be noted certain features of the national liberation movement which differentiate it from similar movements in other colonies:

a) It results from the monopoly of commercial and economic opportunities which has been preserved for the white group that the emergence of a significant capitalist section among the Africans has been deliberately frustrated. The African liberation movement is not dominated by the unstable and potentially treacherous elements which have led similar movements elsewhere. It is a movement of workers and peasants, professional people, middle and commercial classes, in which the pro­gressive, working class tendency plays an increasingly influential part.

(b) The demand for national independence takes a different form in South Africa from that taken in countries dominated by overseas imperialist states. Since the imperi­alist oppressor lives right here the demand is not for "independence" but for self-government, democracy, that is to say, for equal rights and opportunities for all. (Superficially, this struggle resembles the franchise struggles of the bourgeois democratic revolutions of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: this resemblance should not blind us to its real character as a national struggle for self-government and self-determination.)

(c) Since the liberation movement is not a predominantly bourgeois movement it does not subscribe to the reformist and idealist illusions which characterise bourgeois movements (including national movements) in the twentieth century and which spring out of their fear of the awakened masses in their hope of wresting concessions from the ruling class. The Defiance Campaign in this country was quite different in purpose and content from the classical Gandhiite "satyagraha" movement: it was seen as a means (a very effective one too) of propaganda and organisation, rather than an attempt at "conquest by submission." Passivity, of the so-called Unity Movement type, consisting of negative boycotts and "non-collaboration", is widely recognized today as a timid intellectual substitute for resistance. (Which is not to say that well-organised boycotts with mass backing cannot be in suitable circumstances useful educating and organising techniques).

(d) The liberation movement has concentrated on formulating political demands. But the economic content of national liberation in South Africa must inevitably centre in redivision of the land and the nationalisation of the principal means of production (for the power of imperialism in this country can only be broken by divorcing the imperialists from the means of production). As the movement grows in strength, confidence and political clarity it is bound to give expression and emphasis to such demands.

5, The enormous burden of the top-heavy administrative and police apparatus which is required to maintain the imperialist system in this country (and which is bound to increase year by year) and the increasing inroads made into their own rights and privileges (in a police state) must sooner or later make their impact upon the white working population of South Africa as well. Whether they will, in the long run, reject the role of a counter-revolutionary army for which the Chamber of Mines millionaires have cast them, depends on many factors. Not the least of these factors is the effectiveness and perseverance of that clear-headed and courageous band of white democrats which has already identified itself with the aims and the struggle of the liberation movement.

DISCUSSION

The following points were raised in the discussion:

1. A distinction must be made between the mining industry with a need for cheap labour and secondary industry with a need for expanding markets and stable skilled labour. The political repercussions of such a policy, however, would probably stop the secondary industrialists from demanding these economic reforms. The Cham­ber of Industries, for example, has never really demanded the abolition of the colour bar for just this reason.

2. The leaders of the Liberatory Movement are not large capitalists. They have no vested interests which might lead them to "sell out." In the circumstances of a poor uneducated community, would one find leaders coming from the educated and professional groups or from the industrial proletariat? Alternatively, can the leadership come from the Non-European trade unions?

3. It is not a national but a class question. For example, amongst Africans we have workers, petit-bourgeoisie and capitalists and each is interested in his own troubles. Congress does not represent anything but itself and certainly is not a workers' movement. Passive resistance is a bourgeois idea. In fact, issues taken up were bourgeois issues.

A NOTE BY THE SPEAKER ON THE DISCUSSION [....]

1. On alleged "progressive capitalism" and the role of secondary industry

It is true that there are certain contradictions between different sections of the white imperialist class in South Africa. Manufactured of consumer goods compete for cheap labour at a disadvantage with mining and farming employers because the complex of “cheap-labour” legislation (passes, taxes reserves urban areas etc.) operates primarily in the interest of the latter employers. Secondary industrialists therefore are obliged to offer slightly higher wage rates, and their spokesmen frequently criticise the pass laws etc. Moreover, they seek a more stable, experienced and better-educated labour force.

If higher wage-rates were paid for farm labour and mine they would benefit by an increased demand in the home market.

It would, however, be gravely mistaken to over emphasise these factors, or to make a false analogy with, for example, the American Civil War (with, I suppose, the South African clothing and furniture manufacturers in the role of the Northern capitalists fighting the slave-owning planters of the South).

This analogy completely overlooks the characteristically imperialist structure of South Africa, and the basic position of the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie as junior partners in the super-exploitation of colonial-type non-white labour. Their continued existence as a class is dependent on the continuance of this imperialist structure. The abolition of white domination would inevitably bring with it the destruction of the white monopoly of capital and of commercial opportunities.

Moreover, we cannot lose sight of the fact of the very substantial economic dependence of manufacturing interests on the predominant primary industries. Much of the engineering industry produces mining and farming equipment, or equipment for closely related and subsidiary purposes. In addition to these direct links, the great Mining and financial interests own directly or indirectly (through the banks) a big and growing share of industrial capital. This is precisely what is meant by monopoly capitalism, the merging of finance and industrial capitalists into finance capital.

These important factors help to explain why the "secondary industries" have never far in their occasional criticisms as to establish any political party of their own. (The Liberal Party, no doubt, aims to attract their support, but there is not the slightest it they have succeeded; the Liberals will only be supported by capitalists in the event of their appearing to have some prospect of diverting the "dangerous" non-White Liberation Movement - and even then their support is as likely to come from the Chamber of Mines as the Chamber of Industries. The Mines, after all, are the mainstay Institute of Race Relations).

It is time to discard illusions about "progressive capitalism" as a significant factor among any section of the merciless exploiters who constitute the white imperialist group. We are not living in the period of nineteenth century expanding capitalism, but of shrinking twentieth century imperialism. The decisive conflict in our country is that between white imperialism on the one hand; and on the other, the various classes among the non-white people, headed by the working class, and aiming at national emancipation and full democracy. In this conflict the white manufacturing and commercial bourgeoisie -allied with imperialism, a part of imperialism. Of course, these considerations apply to the groups among the white population (workers, professional people, etc.) who do not directly derive profits from colonial exploitation and may, as I have indicated, be regarded as potential allies of democracy, in certain circumstances.

2. On the Class Character of the Non-White Liberation Movements

The special feature of imperialism in South Africa is the existence of the large population of the dominant imperialist nationality, side by side in the same state territory as the oppressed colonial people. This has resulted in the virtual exclusion of the non-white peoples, especially the Africans, from the commercial and other opportunities which the development of imperialism afforded to a small minority in other colonies, and the virtual monopolization of those opportunities by the dominant white). Despite the exceptional capitalistic development of South Africa, this country has not experienced the growth of a "Native bourgeoisie" to anything like the extent that has occurred in India, Indonesia or even the Gold Coast and other African territories unsuitable for white settlement.

It is true that despite all past restrictions, Indians and Africans have in many instances managed to establish themselves in the most precarious and least-rewarding section of capitalist class - retail trade, and as urban landlords, on the fringes of the transport industry, etc. But three important factors are worth noting about the small bourgeois group - firstly, nowhere have non-white employers been allowed to enter the field as substantial competitors in the labour market. There are no large-scale non-white employers and direct employers of labour. Secondly, the non-white commercial class is exceptionally small, not only in relation to the white bourgeoisie, but also in relation to the total non-white population, and to the working class. Thirdly, the foothold which class has established is extremely tenuous and constantly threatened by the ruling group which wants to seize every advantage for itself and reduce the entire non-white group to a proletarian status. (Consider the intention and current use of the Group Areas against Indian and other non-white merchants).

In addition to these petty capitalist elements the non-white population comprises a relatively small (for the same obvious reasons) group of professional people, mainly teachers, chiefs and other civil servants and small handicraftsmen. Far the most important sections are the industrial, mining and agricultural working class, and the peasantry which (because of land shortage and the migratory labour system) is increasingly merged with the working class.

The National Liberatory movements comprise an alliance of all these classes arid groups for the common aims of equality, self-government and land. This is a familiar characteristic of such movements among oppressed colonial peoples everywhere. The development of many of these movements has been marked by the dominance of the bourgeoisie, and in critical periods a split among the capitalist elements, a section of which has treacherously betrayed the movement in order to reach a compromise with imperialism at the expense of the masses.

While it would be wrong to assert that the movement has been free of such tendencies in our country, or will be free of them in the future, it would be still more wrong to generalize mechanically from overseas experience and to assume that the Congresses are mere "bourgeois affairs" which "pure working class elements" should stand aloof from, or attempt to disrupt. Apartheid South Africa allows little or no room for a compromise with non-white capitalism; the economically and numerically small char­acter of non-white capitalism, and the consequent threat of its complete extinction by white imperialism, has made it both less influential and more revolutionary than, say, the giant Birla and Tata concerns in India or the big bankers behind Chiang-Kai-Shek.

In recent years, particularly, the militant working class tendency has wielded increasing influence in our national movements. In the Indian Congress, the progressive working class policy of men like Dadoo and Naicker has completely displaced the compromising line of the former bourgeois leadership; and a similar development has taken place in the A.N.C., especially in the Transvaal. But the policy of genuine workers' leaders in these movements is not to drive out the allied classes, but rather to broaden out the movements, and to make the alliance of all oppressed people firm and enduring. It is significant that the ultra-"left" sectarian policy of certain Congress members was resoundingly defeated at the October 1953, Transvaal Annual Conference of the A.N.C., which at the same time gave an overwhelming vote of confidence to its working class and progressive leaders.

3. On the Allegation that "It is not a National but a Class Question " Of course, every question is at its roots "a class question" but one can have little patience with the pedantic arm-chair socialist types of "theoreticians" who are apparently unable to see that on practically every main issue of home and foreign policy, the outlook and aims of such a bourgeois element as, for example. Dr. Moroka, are far more progressive in content than such working class elements as the Mineworkers' Union, the S.A.R. Staff Associations or the S.A.T.L.C. 9 In case anyone should mistake these arm-chair socialists with authoritative spokesmen of any sort of progressive opinion, it is time to say that this point of view, like that of a previous lecturer who suggested at the Discussion Club the abolition of the national character of the Congresses (which means, in effect, their liquidation) represents a crude opportunist distortion of, and deviation from, scientific political theory.