SOUTH
AFRICA ON THE EVE OF SOCIAL CHANGE
Concerning
Marxism & National Liberation
Translated
by
Willfred
F. Feuser
Copyright:
Franz
J. T. Lee,
for the
translation
W. F. Feuser.
November, 1982
This book, in its German edition, had the honour of coming under the censorship axe of apartheid; it was forbidden to possess, to cite or to read in South Africa.
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This is a duplicate copied from the last existing book available in English in the archives of the University Library of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt on Main, Germany, under the signature Q 82/488/25 82488251T. This duplicate has been hand written by Iris Bühler and Stella Bühler between 1996 and 1998, as there was no way to photocopy the book, due to its unsharp and mostly faded printing. Orthographic errors have been corrected.
Final revision, editing and conversion of the manuscript into html-format by Jutta Schmitt.
Furthermore,
deliberately
we have not updated the original manuscript, in order to avoid the
violation
of the flowing truths of yester-millennium.
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Original Title: Südafrika
vor der Revolution?
Copyright: Fischer
Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH,
Frankfurt am Main,
1973.
346 016446 isbn
English Version Published by Pandemonium
Electronic Publications, Mérida, Venezuela, 2001.
URL:
The climatic conditions in Southern Africa have always appeared very attractive from the Central European point of view. For this reason oppressed and landless peasants especially from the Netherlands, England, France and Portugal at an early period started emigrating to the territories of what is at present known as the Republic of South Africa, Rhodesia, Mozambique and Angola. The very first contacts with the European powers had already brought about the decline of the great African empires such as Zimbabwe, Azania, Congo etc. so that the settlers found it easy to continue in turn the oppression they themselves had suffered in Europe and to reduce the indigenous African population to serfdom.
These conditions, which date back to the early colonial period and European feudalism, have in more recent times been adapted to our industrial age through categories which are partly borrowed from German Fascism: „master race“, „racial purity“, „Bantustans“ (in actual fact residential areas for industrial reserve armies) etc. At the same time, however, the oppressed majority of the population is beginning to search for new ways of liberating itself from the white minority. The history of these liberation movements and their likely future development against the socio-economic background of South Africa is described in this book, which is the revised and enlarged version of a doctoral dissertation entitled "The Influence of Marxism on the National Liberation Movements in South Africa".
About the Author:
Franz John
Tennyson
Lee, born in Ficksburg in 1938, is a South African classified
as
„Coloured“ by the racist legislation of his home country. He has been
living
in the Federal Republic of Germany since
1962 where he studied Political Science, Philosophy and History under Professors Ernst Bloch, Theodor W. Adorno and Iring W. Fetscher. He obtained his Ph.D degree at the University of Frankfurt on the Main in 1970. Since January 1972, Dr. Lee has been a Senior Lecturer in Political Sciences at the Fachhochschule Darmstadt (Darmstadt University of Technology).
Between April 1977 and March 1979, the author lectured at the University of Guyana, Georgetown, in the Department of Political Science and Law, of which he was Acting-Head of Department during the Academic year 1978/1979. Since September 1979, he joined the staff of the post-graduate department of the University of the Andes, Mérida, Venezuela, as Professor of International Politics, where he is still teaching. Between November 1982 and July 1983, as Visiting Scholar, he lectured at the University of Port Harcourt, in the Department of Political and Administrative Studies.
Dr. Lee has published various works. Among them are: Technische Intelligenz und Klassenkampf (1974); Teoría-Praxis de la Revolución-Emancipación (1983). He also made contributions to other books: „Raíces históricas y socio-económicas de la ideología del racismo: Sudáfrica y Guyana“, in Guyana Hoy (ed. R. G. de Romero, 1982); „Dependence and Revolutionary Theory: Relevance to the African Situation“, in Political Science in Africa: A Critical Review ( ed. Yolamu R. Barongo, 1983). At the end of 1983, the University of the Andes Press is publishing his latest work: "Socialismo Cooperativista" en Guyana: Ocaso de un Mito.
TO MY
MOTHER, MARIA LEE
DECEASED 11.
MARCH, 1975
AND
MY
FATHER,
FRANZ TENNYSON LEE
DECEASED 5.
OCTOBER 1965
Both victims of Apartheid
like the millions of South
African freedom fighters
whose names will never be
recorded in official history.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword to the English
Edition
(7)
Chapter 1: Political Literature on South Africa (11)
A:
Publications
in the Federal Republic of
Germany
(11)
B: On the
historiography of the South African Liberation
movements
(16)
Chapter
2:
Concerning the History of the South African Liberation
movements
(22)
A: The
transitorial
period (1880 - 1910
)
(24)
B: The
African
political
awakening
(31)
1. From forms of tribal organization to national political
movements
(31)
2. The rise of politico-religious
movements
(36)
a) The Bulhoek Massacre, May
1921
(38)
b) The Bondelswart Massacre, May
1922
(40)
3. The beginnings of the Trade Union
movement
(41)
4. The foundation of the All African Convention,
1936
(45)
C: The
attempt
to form a united front of the oppressed (1943 -
1960)
(49)
D: The
social
revolutionary development since
1960
(54)
1. The foundation of the African People´s Democratic
Union of Southern
Africa ( APDUSA
)
(57)
2. The foundation of underground movements developing
methods
of
guerilla
warfare
(58)
a) Poqo and Umkhonto we
Siswe
(58)
b) The foundation of the Yu Chi Chan Club (YCCC),
later
renamed
National Liberation Front of South Africa
(NLF)
(59)
E:
Summary
(64)
Chapter 3: Trotskyism and Stalinism in South Africa (67)
A:
Concerning
the theory of socialist
revolution
(67)
B: The
genesis
of the theory of Trotskyism and its
development
(73)
C: The
criticism
of Trotskyism in South
Africa
(82)
D: The
policy
of the Communist Party of South
Africa
(83)
E: The
criticism
of Stalinism in South
Africa
(95)
Chapter 4: The Land and National Questions in South Africa (96)
A:
Preliminary
remark
(96)
B:
Historical
background
(97)
1. The land
question
(97)
2. The national
question
(107)
3. Main
theses
(110)
C: The
position
of the Socialist
groupings
(111)
1.
General
(111)
2. The Sparacist
theses
(113)
3. The political theories of the
Trotskyites
(116)
D:
Trotsky´s
„Letter to South
Africa“
(121)
Chapter
5:
National liberation movements before and
after
Sharpeville
(128)
A: The
African
National Congress
(ANC)
(128)
B: The
Panafricanist
Congress
(PAC)
(135)
C: The
Unity
Movement of South Africa
(UMSA)
(141)
1. The struggle for national liberation
(1935-1945)
(142)
2. The transition to a conscious class struggle
(1945-1965)
(143)
3. Incipient guerrilla warfare (1965 to
date)
(145)
D: The Liberation Struggle in Namibia (149)
1. The history of German
colonialism
(149)
2. Annexation by South
Africa
(150)
3. The emancipation
movement
(151)
Chapter 6: Who will change South Africa? (155)
A: On the
problem
of the qualitative and quantitative strength of the
liberation movements in South
Africa
(155)
B: On the
problem of the social basis of the
revolution
(158)
Chapter 7: The Armed Struggle (170)
A:
Concerning
the problem of
violence
(170)
B: The
present
situation
(171)
C: On the
revolutionary strategy of the guerrilla in South
Africa
(175)
D: The
formulation
of a Revolutionary Theory for South
Africa
(182)
1. Structural economic changes since the
‘Sixties'
(182)
2. „Consultation“ and
„Dialogue“
(185)
3. The Necessity of a Theory of Underdevelopment for South
Africa
(191)
4. On the Theory of
Underdevelopment
(197)
Appendices
(202)
Abbreviations
(202)
Bibliography (203)
A. Primary
sources
(203)
B. Secondary
literature
(208)
C.
Miscellaneous
(213)
D.
Brochures
(217)
E. Periodicals, journals and
newspapers
(217)
F. Author’s publications,
1963-1975
(219)
Documents:
I. Trotsky’s „Letter on the National and Agrarian Struggles
in
South Africa“
(1933)
(222)
II. Democratic Ten Point Programme of the AAC, NEUM, SOYA,
CPSU, APDUSA, etc.
(1943)
(228)
III. The Freedom Charter
(1955)
(230)
IV. Pamphlet No. III, published by the N.L.F.
(1961)
(234)