Nous reproduisons
ci-dessous le sommaire de louvrage – en anglais uniquement – de notre
camarade sud-africain Martin LEGASSICK intitul vers la dmocratie socialiste.
Cette somme de plus de 700 pages revisite entirement la thorie
rvolutionnaire du dbut du XXme sicle nos jours, en mettant
systmatiquement en relation les grands vnements mondiaux avec la situation
spcifique de lAfrique du Sud. De toute evidence, louvrage de Martin est le
plus stimulant et le plus intressant crit sur ce sujet depuis des annes.
Nous ne pouvons quinciter les lecteurs Anglophones de ce site se le procurer
en sadressant lՎditeur.
R. Debord
We reproduce below
the synopsis of the work - in English only - of our South-African comrade
Martin LEGASSICK entitled towards the socialist democracy. This sum of more
than 700 pages entirely revisits the revolutionary theory of the beginning of
the XXme century at our days, by systematically connecting the great world
events with the specific situation of South Africa. Obviously, the work of
Martin most stimulative and most interesting is written on this subject since years.
We can only incite the Anglophones readers of this site to get it in addressing
itself to the editor.
R. Debord
Towards
socialist democracy
By Martin LEGASSICK
For Ted Grant, (1915-2006)
who for more than a decade exemplified for me Marxism in theory
and in practice. And for Margie, who has tried to hold me on the right path
ever since.
Published in 2007 by
University of KwaZulu-Natal Press
Private Bag X01,
Scottsville, 3209
South Africa
Email: books@ukzn.ac.za
Website:
www.ukznpress.co.za
2007 Martin Legassick
All rights reserved. No
part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing
from University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
ISBN 1-86914-094-X (10
digit)
ISBN 13 digit still
to be added
Editor: Andrea
Nattrass
Cover
designer:
Typesetter:
Indexer:
Printed and bound by
Contents
AAcknowledgements
Preface
The anti-colonial
revolution
Socialist revolution
and the working class
The Russian revolution
Stalinism and Marxism
The Chinese revolution
Crisis of leadership
South Africa
Knowledge, experience,
and intellectuals
Chapter 1: By way of
introduction
Britain
Ghana
The United States and
Britain again
Revolution in the
United States?
The 1970s: Back to
Britain
The political economy
of apartheid
Strategy in the
struggle
The SACP
The revival of the
workers movement in South Africa
Mozambique, Angola and
Soweto
New factors in South
Africa
Looking forward and Workers Unity
Censorship, and
suspension from the ANC
PART I: THEORETICAL
AND HISTORICAL
Chapter 2: World
capitalism and the necessity of socialism
The twentieth century
Today
Crisis of over-production
Globalisation
Unemployment
Neo-liberalism
Credit
Accumulation by
dispossession
The working class today
Argentina
Venezuela
Bolivia
Conclusion
Chapter 3: The
theory and practice of permanent revolution
Bourgeois and
proletarian revolution
Trotskys standpoint
Stalinism rejects
permanent revolution
Marx and Engels on
permanent revolution
Imperialism and
reformism
The permanent
revolution and Russia
Lenins perspectives
Lenin and Trotsky:
Political differences
The permanent
revolution in 1917
Dialego on the 1917
revolution
Revolution or
counter-revolution in 1917
The Chinese revolution
of 1923–27
The post-Second World
War Third world
Chile
Conclusion
Chapter 4: The rise
of Stalinism
The post-war
revolutionary wave
Bolshevik
internationalism
The rise of the
bureaucracy in Russia
Socialism in one
country against Marxism
Germany and Britain,
1923–26
The bureaucracy
consolidates its power
The victory of Hitler,
1933
The defeat of the
Spanish revolution
Degeneration of the
Russian revolution: An international tragedy
A river of blood
PART II: SOUTH
AFRICA: HISTORICAL
Chapter 5: The 1928 black
republic resolution of the CPSA
Historiography
The black republic and
the lessons of Marxism
The black republic and
the Chinese revolution
Trotskys position on
South Africa
The debate over the
black republic resolution I: Before the 6th Congress
The debate over the
black republic resolution II: At and after the 6th Congress
Conclusion
Chapter 6: The rise
of a mass African National Congress, 1948–56
Apartheid
The lack of a workers
party
The Rise of the ANC
The role of the
Communist Party in the ANC
The Freedom Charter
The birth of SACTU
Chapter 7: From the
Alexandra bus boycott to Sharpeville, 1957–60
The 1957 Alexandra bus
boycott
General strike?
The politics of
Congress in the late 1950s
Division weakens the
movement
Chapter 8:
Sharpeville and its aftermath
Sharpeville
SACTU in the Congress
Alliance
Blind alley of
guerrillaism
Conclusion
PART III:
THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL
Chapter 9: The
nature of the Soviet state
Marxism on the workers
state
Bourgeois state
without the bourgeoisie
Trotskys analysis of
the Soviet state
The Soviet Union had
not achieved socialism
The bureaucracy was not
a class
Bonapartism
Bourgeois Bonapartism
in the Third world
Proletarian Bonapartism
Trotskys perspectives
for the Soviet Union
Chapter 10: The
Chinese revolution and its significance
International
significance of the Chinese revolution
Peculiarity of the
Chinese revolution
Interpretations of the
revolution
The Cuban revolution
Other proletarian
Bonapartist regimes
Southern Africa
Chapter 11: The new
SACP analysis of the Soviet state
Admissions by Slovo
Slovo on the nature of
the bureaucracy
Slovo echoes Gorbachev
Slovo on the Marxist
theory of the state
Slovo on Rosa Luxemburg
Slovos reformist
approach to the state
Slovo on bourgeois
democracy
Slovo on socialist
alienation
Slovo on the
perspectives for capitalism
Chapter 12: The
debate around Slovos Has socialism failed?
Jack Simons and Ray
Alexander
Style of leadership?
International effects
of Stalinism
Bukharin
Bourgeois democracy
Lenins State and
revolution
and democracy
The Constituent
Assembly
Lenin on democracy,
1917–20
Lenin on bureaucracy
Stalinism and
Bolshevism
Historically
necessary?1
PART IV: SOUTH
AFRICA: HISTORICAL
Chapter 13: The
strategy of armed struggle in Southern Africa, 1961–75
The armed seizure of
state power
A strategy of rural
guerrillaism?
Cuba, Algeria, and MK
Can a revolutionary
situation be created?
Che Guevara and Debray
The foco
Slovo on guerrilla
warfare
Debray re-evaluates
The Morogoro Conference
Southern Africa
Urban targets
Not a strategy for
power
Lessons of Vietnam
Special Operations Unit
(SOU)
Chapter 14: The
revolutionary upsurge of the 1980s
The Marxist Workers Tendency
of the ANC and Inqaba ya basebenzi
Revival of the movement
inside South Africa
Inqabas position
SALEP, direct links,
and solidarity work
Debate on strategy:
Arming the masses?
Sharpened debate:
Insurrection?
Armed struggle in
practice
How to dismantle the
apartheid state
The negotiated
settlement
Not a February 1917
The fate of the CWI
PART V: SOUTH AFRICA
IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Chapter 15: The
South African political economy
SAs accumulation
crisis
Regulation theory and
its problems
The ANCs agreement
with business
Economic Trends, the
ISP, MERG, the RDP: Swallowed by GEAR
Privatisation and BEE
Investment
Exports
The balance of payments
Manufacturing industry
Mbekis turn?
Consequences of ANC
economic policy
Conclusion
Chapter 16: Wealth,
poverty and unemployment
Top earners and workers
Second economy
The informal sector
Measuring unemployment
(and employment)
Two million jobs?
Informal sector
Social service delivery
Measuring poverty and
inequality
Poverty and inequality
The situation of women
and children
Conclusion
Conclusion: A
political way forward
Service delivery
protests
The ANC and the
tripartite alliance
The South African
Communist Party
The Gramscian approach
Jacob Zuma
A mass workers party
Social movements
Fighting elections
The errors of vanguardism
Oppositional
A democratic centralist
party
Programme
Nationalisation
Workers democracy
today
Workers democracy and
political pluralism
Workers democracy and
productivism
Workers democracy and
concentration of power?
Workers democracy:
Combining legislature and executive
Internationalism
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
It is not possible to
complete a work of this length without incurring many debts. The first is to
all the comrades, from whom I learned a lot, that I worked with in Coventry in
the 1970s, particularly Daryl Cozens and Dave Nellist, and in London in the
1980s particularly Norma Craven, April Ashley and Paul Moorhouse – but
also Rob Petersen for the clarity of his thought, the late Victor Mhlongo,
Weizman Hamilton and his sister Sherie, Darcy and Anneke du Toit, Leon Kaplan,
Mark Heywood, Gavin and Mohammed, Alistair (with whom I stayed in
Lobatse, Botswana, and who stayed with me in London), and many comrades in
Zimbabwe. Among comrades in South Africa from that time from whom I also
learned, I should mention Zackie Achmat,
Josie and Mike Abrahams, Lederle Bosch, Madoda Cuphe, Shafika Isaacs, and
Jack Lewis. Also thanks to colleagues in the Sociology Department at the
University of Warwick in the 1970s, of whom I would like particularly to
mention Simon Clarke, for his acute and honest mind.
In
the 1990s and 2000s I must thank my colleagues in the History Department at the
University of the Western Cape for their constant friendliness and support,
despite the fact that I must have seemed an old dinosaur in the face of their
mainly post-modern endeavours. I would also like to thank the librarians in the
African Studies and the Manuscripts and Archives Library, University of Cape
Town – Allegra, Belinda, Bev, Busi, Lesley, Sue and Yasmin as well as all
the finders and shelvers – for all the help with finding material.
My
orientation in recent years has basically depended on three comrades –
David Hemson, Noor Nieftagodien, and Margie Struthers. But I must also thank
Karel Swartz, Zonwabele Marudulu, Sitness Ndlovu, Max Ntantlana and Fonky
Goboza, as comrades who have kept me anchored on the ground. And our links with
comrades in Labours Militant Voice (US), Movement for Socialism (UK) and the Pakistan
Labour Party have kept internationalism in practice. Finally, I must mention
my son Sean, who constantly inspires me, and my daughter Rosa and her partner
John, whose courage and determination also inspires me –
and once again my partner, Margie, who has been a consistent support in many,
many ways for more than twenty years.
The
responsibility for what is said in this book, however, rests on me alone.