BP 1(,15"11 ( 

The Coming Struggle 
for South Africa 


SANDOR 

THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE 


"SANDOR" is a South African who has to remain 
anonymous owing to the provisions of the South African 
General Laws Amendment Act (1963) 

FABIAN TRACT 345 

THE F/..BIAN SOCIETY 
11, Dartmouth Street, S.W.l 


Note.-This pamphlet, like all publications of the 
FABIAN SOCIETY, represents not the collective 
view of the Society but only the view of the individual 
who prepared it. The responsibility of the Society 
is limited to approving the publications which it 
issues as worthy of consideration within the Labour 
Movement. 

June, 1963. 


I. Whose Victory? 
B
B
RITAIN'S policy towards South Afrka is now wholly untenable. H is 
hypocritical and iUogical for MT. Patrick Wall, M.P., British delegate 
to the United Nations Trusteeship Committee, to describe apartheid as 
'morally abominable, intellectually grotesque and spiritually indefensible', r 
and to proceed from there to affirm the right to sell arms to the perpetrators 
of apartheid. But the issue is not limited to the sale of arms. Fundamental 
to the casuistry behind Mr. Wall's statement, is the British Government's 
paralysed indecisiveness as to where Britain's true interests really lie. On the 
one hand, South Africa is today a profitable trading partner and can 
apparently be relied upon to stay in the Western camp. On the other hand 
one can hardly supplement Mr. Wall's list of derogatory epithets by the 
words 'and a good and profitable friend of the West'. The classic Marxist 
would say, of course, that the addition of these words aptly sums up Britain"s 
relations with South Africa. If this were really so, there would be less 
ambivalence shown by Britain's policy-makers. 

Britain has considerable interests as well as respons~bilities throughout 
Southern Africa. Nearly £1,000 million of British capital is invested in South 
Africa alone. Britain supplies nearly half of South Africa's imports (valued 
at nearly £150 millions annually), and is herself South Africa's best customer. 
Britain's lease of the Simonstown naval base arises from the belief that the 
Cape sea-route, and hence South Africa, are of vital strategic importance to 
the West. Clearly this would not be true in the event of nuclear war, but 
some believe that Simonstown might be important in a 'limited war'. 

Britain has clear responsibilities, which she has hopelessly neglected in the 
past, for the three High Commission Territories-Swaziland, Basutoland and 
Bechuanaland-whose future depends considerably on what happens in 
South Africa. All of them are vulnerable, in different degrees, to economic 
and other pressures from South Africa, and indeed today are little more 
than economic appendages. As they advance to self-government and assume 
policies and economies of their own they are coming to be regarded by the 
Verwoerd government as potential threats, and by the South African 
resistance movements as likely bases for subversion against the Republic. 
Britain is already too deeply involved in these territories to be able simply 
to abandon them in the near future. Thus her dilemma in this area will 
increase and not diminish. Moreover Britain cannot hide her policy 
decisions: they will be watched closely and critically by the entire Afro-
Asian world. Nor should one ignore the very real risk that the Commonwealth 
may face another crisis over South Africa. 

The real issue before Britain hinges on a distinction between long and 
short-term interests, and between the static and the dynamic view. In tJbe 
long run a country in the throes of rev,olution is neither a reliable tnu.ling 
partner nor a secure guardian of capital invested. In the long run Dr. 
Verwoerd's government, if it lasts long enough, might conceivably ensure 
an ultimate Communist victory; not because the Soviet ·bloc will step in 
and take ,over, but because indigenous communism, equipped with all the 

1 November, 1962. 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTII AFRICA 

techniques for undergr<>und revolution, will flourish and expand in the 
absence of any effective alternative. 

Thus to have no ooherent policy <>n one of the most inflammable international 
issues of the day cannot conceivably be regarded as acting in the 
national interest. The British government has been consistent only in its 
refusal to consider taking part in a programme of sanctions against South 
Africa. It has offered no alternative policy. Meanwhile the situation is not 
standing still. Inside South Africa a revolutionary resistance is building up. 
It views with growing despair and hostility the vacillations of the Western 
powers-and of Britain in particular as the source of the bulk of the 
government's imported arms, and the most .outspoken opponent <>f international 
pressures. The independent African states are increasingly coming 
to the conclusion that Britain will act only when the alternative of inaction 
is worse-that is, when her trading ·interests are already so severely damaged 
that she has little more to lose. 

Pressure for Sanctions 

International pressures for sanctions against the government of South 
Africa are growing rapidly. Far from diminishing the pressure is likely to 
increase as the search goes on for ways of making sanctions more effective. 
There is no other subject upon which the nations of Africa and Asia are 
so completely united; and fully backing them are the countries <>f the Soviet 
bloc. For the Afro-Asians, the South African regime embodies the two 
cardinal wrongs of racial discrimination and alien rule. They are as bitterly 
opposed to apartheid as are the doctrinaire cold war warriors of East and 
West towards each other's regimes. But the opponents of apartheid have 
an important advantage: South Africa's white regime has no powerful ally 
willing to support it openly against its attackers. History is against those 
who uphold white rule in South Africa; even those nations which benefit 
from trading with the Republic do not support its internal policies. 
After the Sharpeville shooting in 1960, an Af.rikaner nationalist paper, Die 
Burger, warned <>f the danger of South Africa becoming 'the pole-cat' of 
the world community. The warning has become the reality. 

International feeling against South Africa has passed the point where it 

is considered enough to denounce apartheid. In November, 1962, the 

United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for sanctions 

against South Africa, for the first time with a two thirds majority. This 

resolution asked member states to take the following measures against South 

Africa: to break off diplomatic relations; to close their ports to her ships; 

to prevent their own ships from entering her ports; to refrain from trading 

with her, including refusing to sell her arms and ammunition; and to refuse 

landing and passage facilities to her aircraft. The resolution also asked the 

Security Council to take appropriate action, including sanctions, to secure 

South Africa's compliance with Assembly resolutions; and to consider, if 

necessary, her expulsion from the United Nations. A Special Committee 

was established to keep South Africa's racial policies under review and to 

report back from time to time. 

The resolution was adopted by 67 votes to 16, with 23 abstentions. Every 

independent African and Asian state voted in favour, with the exception of 



THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

the Central African Republic and Gabon, who were absent. Countries which 
abstained were Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa 
Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Finland, Guatemala, 
Honduras, Iceland, Italy, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Peru, Sweden, 
Thailand, Urugway and Venezuela. Britain voted against, along with the 
United States, France, Portugal, Spain, the 'white' Commonwealth, Japan, 
Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Turkey and, of course, 
South Africa herself. The United States justified its vote on the grounds that 
the resolution could not be carried out, and that to pass it as an ineffectual 
measure would only help to bring the U.N. into disrepute. The British 
delegate contented himself with a condemnation of South Africa's policies, 
adding in effect that sanctions were not the right way of dealing with the 
problem. 

The resolution was admittedly not a sensible one. As it stands it cannot 
be effective. International sanctions cannot be undertaken in an uncoordinated 
fashion by individual nations acting separately. They must be directed to 
a specific political end, controlled to achieve it, and ended once the objective 
has been reached. The resolution ignores the realities of international power, 
and it makes no provision for the machinery needed to implement a pro-
gramme of sanctions. Unless it has the support of all the major powers, the 
measures listed .cannot be enforced, since a General AssembJy resolution 
is not regarded as binding by countries which have not voted for it. The 
only international political authority which is in a position to enforce 
a United Nations decision and direct its implementation is the Security 
Council. Its action requires agreement between the major powers themselves. 

Nevertheless, the U.N's. special Apartheid Committee has held several 
meetings, the first of which was attended by the Secretary-General, U Thant. 
It has written to member governments asking what they intend to do about 
the measures envisaged in the resolution. The British government's reply, 
it is safe to predict, will almost certainly be entirely negative, not only as 
to intention but also as to attitude. 

The Communist countries, on the other hand, are wholly committed on 
the South African question. Their interests happen to be served by identifying 
themselves openly with the revolutionary forces. There is nothing to 
inhibit them, as there was in the case of Algeria where Soviet concern to 
avoid an ,open rupture with France caused the Communists to equivocate 
throughout the F.L.N. revolt. Of all the African states, South Africa is the 
one to which the Marxist analysis and communist methods of struggle apply 
most closely, and the one most likely to develop the political forces which 
will accept them. It is also by far the richest prize on the African continent. 
The Communists have publicly committed themselves to international 
sanctions and privately offered money and arms for the conduct of revolution. 

Race War Cannot be Isolated 

But even though the 1962 U.N. resolution will not produce a programme 
of effective sanctions, the South African conflict will remain a burning international 
issue. As the frontiers of independent Africa approach the borders 
of South Africa, the weight of African solidarity will make itself felt by 
providing bases for revolution and channels for assistance. A race war m 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

South Africa cannot fail to involve the rest of the continent. And since the 
Communists are already committed it is bound to involve the rest of the 
world as well. The static objection that intervention in South Africa should 
logically entail intervention in other parts of the world-for example in 
Tibet, Kashmir, Mississippi or Hungary-will fall before the political fact 
that, unlike any of these, South Africa has no friend among the major 
powers which would dare support it against the combined hosi'ility of the 
non-aligned world. Because the West is unable to act in the case of Tibet 
or Hungary is no reason for it to believe it can avoid commitment on the 
South African question. 

A policy based on the hope that things will gradually 'sort themselves out' 
in South Africa is hopelessly unrealistic. There is no possibility of an 
alternative, less extremist, white government replacing Dr. Verwoerd's; and 
there is no hope of Dr. Verwoerd's policies succeeding in winning African 
co-operation. Thus the situation can only get worse. For Britain-and indeed 
for everybody else-there can be no escaping the challenge. Unless Britain 
formulates a consistent and clear-cut policy, she will simply be dragged into 
action or, what is even more to be feared, she will be pushed into the 
humiliation of providing one of the props underpinning the Verwoerd regime. 

The resistance movements have already to some extent shaken the confidence 
of the white population in its ability to maintain the status quo; 
but without outside help they cannot hope to defeat the South African 
armed forces. Alone they can inflict terrible damage to life and property, 
but without allies they cannot win in an open fight. There is no doubt that 
they will get help from other African states and the Communist powers, 
and that they will win, partly as a result of physical struggle, partly 
through international political pressure. How soon they win, and what is 
left by the time they do, will depend to a considerable extent on how the 
international forces line up on the South African question, and how purposeful 
they are in supporting one side or the other. 

What will be the price of victory in terms of crippled and embittered 
human beings, in terms of death and fear and atrocity, and which of the 
external forces will act most decisively to shorten the struggle and diminish 
its tragic consequences. 

However, we do not know. 

2. The Clash of Nationalisms
TWO South African political movements were born in the year 1912: 

the African National Congress and the Afrikaner Nationalist Party. 
The dynamic of twentieth century Africa was to ensure the head-on collision 
of the nationalisms carried in these two movements, both of them formed 
two years after the birth of the Union of South Africa itself. African 
nationalism was to become the most powerful continental political force. 
Unique to South Africa was the peculiar isolationism of Afrikaner 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

nationalism, which gave the South African struggle a dimension and 
a resonance unknown even in other settler areas of Africa. The story of 
South Africa since then is the struggle between nationalisms, rather than the 
familiar conflict between African nationalism and imperialist hegemony. 

Today Afrikaner nationalism has the confidence and aggressiveness of the 
victor in the struggle, at the very moment that African nationalism elsewhere 
on the continent has transformed the relationship between Africa and 
the Colonial Powers. But the seeds of Afrikaner ascendancy in South Africa 
were planted by the terms of the settlement of Union and independence in 
1910. Political power was then held by the minority white population. 
Though Coloureds (people of mixed blood) and some Asians and Africans 
had the vote in certain areas, they were of little political consequence. By 
granting independence to a minority in the belief that representative government 
would follow in due course, Britain ignored an axiom of politics: no 
minority voluntarily renounces a privileged position. So it has proved. Any 
political party which has proposed an extension of the franchise and a sharing 
of political power has forfeited all hope of political office in South Africa. 

This was easily predictable. It is not a peculiarity of white South Africa 
that the electorate is essentially short-sighted, preferring privileges it can 
see to a theoretical long-term stability under a mixed or African government 
it can scarcely even conceive. All the promises of 1910 that the franchise 
would gradually be extended were destined, from the moment of independence, 
to be broken. The electorate has moved steadily to the right in an 
inexorable process set in train in 1910. Equally inevitably African demands 
have become more insistent, more militant, more frightening to the 
European minority, which in turn has strengthened its determination to 
preserve its threatened position. Increasingly, right-wing governments have 
been compelled, in the face of growing African opposition and European 
fear, to adopt more authoritarian methods. 

A Police State 

Today the Nationalist government has arbitrary power over individuals 
and organisations, their activities and their public utterances, which makes 
it a police state. If some sections of society do not feel the weight of these 
powers that is because they are not at present a threat to the status quo 
of white supremacy. But the African Congresses and the Communist Party 
having been banned, the Liberal Party is now in danger, and active members 
of the Progressive Party feel themselves threatened to the extent that they 
are able to make any real impact for radical change in the sources of political 
power.1 The General Laws Amendment Act of April, 1963, gives the Minister 
of Justice powers to detain people convicted of certain political offences for 
indefinite periods; and the right to detain people 'for interrogation' for 
renewable periods of ninety days, until such time as they liave, in the opinion 
of the Commissioner of Police, replied satisfactorily to all questions. 

The victory of the Afrikaner people within the white oligarchy was ensured 

1 Both the Liberal and Pr.ogressive Parties stand foT a non-racial vote!Ts' roll: but 
whereas ·the Progressives propose a qualified franchise, rthe Libe-rals stand for 
universa,l adult suffrage. 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

partly by the vigour of their nationalism and partly by their superior birthrate 
which gave them a majority over English-speaking whites by the mid1940s. 
Today the Afrikaners make up just over 60 per cent of the white 
population. 

Who Are the Afrikaners? 

The Afrikaner nation is the only white nation to have evolved in Africa. 
It came into existence in South Africa, and has no roots anywhere else. 
Its character was formed by the circumstances of its birth in the small, 
defensive communiries of trekkers, embattled to survive the isolation and 
danger of the unexplored African hinterland and its hostile peoples. Wars 
against the African were conducted from the 'laager'-a circle of ox-wagons 
enclosing the women, children and cattle and guarded by the men. The hated 
British could not be defeated; they could only be evaded by trekking further 
north into greater isolation and into deepening suspicion of everything but 
the trusted familiarity of the 'volk' itself. The nation was weaned on the 
glorification of heroic self-reliance pitted against the cultural and political 
persistence of the British and the numerical superiority of the Africans. The 
'volk's' most important duty was self-preservation for the sake of the survival 
of Light and Civilisation and Christianity in a Dark, Barbaric and Pagan 
continent. The man who left the 'volk' was a traitor, for he left his place 
unguarded, a chink in the laager. The man who questioned the fundamentalist 
tenets of the Dutch Reformed Churches blasphemed and placed in 
jeopardy Divine favour for the whole nation. 

All these ideas and feelings were incorporated into the Afrikaner 
Nationalist Party, which is more accurately described as the embodiment of 
the heritage of the people than as a political party. The Church, the party 
and the system of education became inseparable. Each was seen as an 
essential part in a destiny of struggle. The objective of the party as the 
instrument of the nation was the establishment of the Pure Afrikarter 
Republic, finally dissociated from the hated British imperialisms and undiluted 
either by what are called 'foreign, liberalistic ideologies' or by the 
'paganism and barbarism of the African'. 

In March 1963 an Afnikaans Church Journal, Die Kerkblad, published 
a list of 'enemies' against which, it said, the Afrikaner nation had to fight: 
'Communism; Islam; the fraud of R.oman Catholicism; the sickly sentimentalism 
and sensationalism of Methodism; the Liberalism which is like 
a cancerous growth in the Western world; materialism; education without 
dogma; Modernism and the false unifying of Churches at the expense of 
truth'. 

In a speech made in April 1962 the Rev. H. L. C. Snijders, Moderator of 
the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk, expressed the Afrikaner's passionate 
sense of besieged isolation. Immigration was all very well, he said, 'but our 
loftiest ideal ought to remain ... that the Afrikaans spirit should live in 
the future'. Although English was an official language which Afrikaners 
should know, the Afrikaans culture and tradition should always remain the 
most powerful force in South Africa. He 'heartily endorsed' the ?overnment's 
defence preparations, since 'we will have to protect ourselves. The sacrifices 
demanded of us will be great because we are a small nation .. . We have 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

only one homeland . . . and we dare not capitulate. Therefore we shall have 
to fight with our backs to the wall and, if need be, die for the country and 
the volk that is dear to us'. Praising the government's policy of mobilising 
manpower, he said: 'We are no aggressors, but the Boer nation has in the 
past given proof that it can become aggressive and can wage a life and 
death struggle with relentless, tough perseverance. We know no capitulation' 
(Cape Argus, 2.5.62.) 

The sense of struggle becomes a sense of doom in a passionate outburst by 
the Administrator of the Cape, Mr. Nico Malan, on February 22 1963. 
Praising Dr. Verwoerd as 'one of outstanding statesmen of today', he said 
it was only a pity he had not been a citizen of one of the great nations of 
the world. 'The tragedy is that he is the citizen of a small nation of which 
it is doubtful whether its own children and its children's children will be 
able to exist in this beautiful country of ours'. 

From this psychological background, Nationalist Party policy follows 
naturally. The political struggle against the local English was won in 1948 
through the ballot box; and in 1960 by the declaration of the Republic. The 
cultural struggle is being waged through the education system-with its 
emphasis on separate languages and 'Christian National' education-and 
through censorship. Already parents have lost the right to send their children 
to the school of their choice, and the Provinces are losing their autonomy 
in educational matters. The Publications and Entertainments Bill provides 
a virtually unlimited formulation of what is an 'undesirable publication'. 
Though certain opposition newspapers continue to appear, it is because the 
government does not choose to act against them yet. Now that Afrikaner 
hegemony is in sight-on the statute book at any rate-the Prime Minister 
appealed to the English-speaking section of the white community to close 
ranks with the Afrikaner to preserve the existence of the Afrikaner Republic 
against his other traditional threat-the African. 

The Theory of Apartheid 

But the African, unlike the English South African, cannot be politically 
contained, because of his vast numerical superiority. So the theory of apartheid 
was devised. The alternative, political integration with the African, is 
a contradiction of the whole history and psychology of the 'volk'. But the 
Afrikaner understands the force of Nationalism. He knows the African will 
not be content to remain subject to the white man for all time. The only 
answer, as far as .the Afrikaner is concerned, is the division of the country 
into 'black' and 'white' areas. The government-supporting Cape daily paper, 
Die Burger, wrote in a .leading article on April 26, 1963: 'The Bantu's urge 
to freedom and self-government is a natural and just urge which can be 
guided but not destroyed. That it should degenerate into an urge to baasskap 
(dominaa.on) over the other nations in South Africa is a bitter fruit of the 
denial of the principle of a separate territorial freedom'. 

But for electoral reasons South Africa cannot be divided in any just 
proportion between the country's different racial groups. Dr. Verwoerd's 
electoral support derives from his promise to preserve the privileged position 
of the Europeans; and they would not support him in a policy depriving 
them of three-quarters of 'their' country and much of the basis of their 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRJCA 

standard of living. On the other hand, apartheid makes economic nonsense 
unless the country is divided in accordance with population ratios. The 
'white areas'-87 per cent of the country-cannot preserve their present 
productiveness deprived of 80 per cent of their labour force; while the 'black 
areas' cannot support three-quarters of the country's population, deprived of 
the mineral, industrial and capital resources of the rest of the country. This 
is the dilemma of apartheid. Moral and humanitarian issues aside, it cannot 
succeed. 

African Nationalism 

African nationalism in South Africa, like Afrikaner nationalism, is the 
product of the interaction of different races. Africans in the Republic have 
achieved a much higher stake in the European's economic and cultural way 
of life than they have in any other part of the continent. Today only one-
third live as rural peasants in the Reserves: the other two-thirds provide the 
labour force for the mines, industries and farms. Because South Africa is 
incomparably the richest African country, Africans there have a higher 
average standard of living than elsewhere. And since, South Africa is the 
greatest industrial complex in Africa, its workers-largely the Africans, 
Asians and Cotoureds-have suffered all the diseases ·Of a voiceless proletariat: 
overcrowding, unemployment, malnutrition, squalor. They have been 
able to taste the fruits of a materially rich society; they have had access to 
education; they have absorbed the standards of a bourgeois capitalist society. 
But those who live in the lar,ge urban locations are in daily contact with the 
worst aspects of 'Western civilisation'-sophisticated crime, individual greed, 
loss of community life, social disintegration and, above all, a vast disparity 
between the incomes of rich and poor. These are the classic ills of an 
industrial revolution in a capitalist society, but here aggravated by racial 
discrimination. 

The result-or one of them-is a far more sophisticated attitude to politics 
than in other parts of Africa. The classic African nationalism and Pan-
Africanism of the West Coast strikes a chord in the heart of every black 
South African. Yet for them that is only the most important part of 
a complicated story. In South Africa the struggle is not simply between 
Africans and an alien imperialist power: it is a civil war between the victims 
of a local oligarchy and the perpetrators of an indigenous tyranny. It is not 
the struggle of an African nation against a European power whose interests 
are no longer associated with political hegemony: it is the struggle of a 
politically voiceless people against their compatriots who dare not consider 

capitulation. 

The result of these complexities in the African situation has been a lack 
of clarity and unity in the liberation movements. The simple charismatic 
'Africanist' leadership of the west coast has not provided the answer in 
South Africa. Such a simple formula could not unite the diverse economic 

and political elements in the African population, even if its leader were 
~llowed liberty of movement and action for any length of time, which 
1s unlikely. Secondly the nature of South African society and the restrictive 
legislation make the task of organisation infinitely more complex and difficult 
than anywhere else on the continent: rousing calis to 'positive action' are 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

simply an invitation to police action. Thirdly the role of non-Africans in 
the struggle raises, in their most acute form, some difficult issues: can non-
Africans participate effectively in an African nationalist movement; and 
what should be their relations with its leadership? Fourthly the Africans of 
South Africa have far more to lose by conflict with the authorities and until 
recently, far more to gain by keeping in with them, than Africans anywhere 
else. Finally, the degree ·Of formal education ·and industrial experience 
have produced a sophisticated leadership, open to ideological differences of 
analysis and opinion. 

Divisions in the Congresses 

Both Communism and anti-Communism have, for example, taken deep 
root in South Africa. It is certainly the only country in Africa in which the 
Communist Party has a respectable number of educated convinced African 
members, and many informed and passionate Afr-ican ·opponents. The 
reasons should be clear. The industrial aspects of the African's subservience 
make a classic class analysis of the ~ituation more plausible in South Africa 
than elsewhere on the continent. European and other non-African Communists 
in South Africa have for the most part committed themselves 
staunchly to the struggle to overthrow white supremacy, being prepared 
to suffer every consequence of open dedication. Their actions, no less than 
their teachings, have contributed to the multi-racial attitudes of many of 
today's leaders of the African people. 

At present the African movement is deeply divided chiefly on two 
questions. The first is the issue of the role of non-Africans in the struggle, 
the second the question ·Of non-alignment. The African Nationalist Congress 
(A.N.C.) is allied with four other bodies, in all of which Communists have 
a considerable influence-the South African Indian Congress, the Coloured 
People's Congress, the Congress of Democrats and the South African 
Congress of Trade Unions. In 1958, the Pan-African Congress (P.A.C.) was 
formed as a result of a breakaway from the A.N.C. It claimed the A.N.C. 
was being dominated by non-Africans in the other Congresses, all of which 
are much smaller ·in membership. It claimed also that the Communists 
were subjecting the movement to doctrinal and tactical considerations 
deriving from cold war priorities rather than from local South African needs. 

The P.A.C. responded by proposing a strictly 'Africanist' programme. 
Reacting against the A.N.C.'s system of 'alliance' with non-African groups, 
it went to the other extreme to reject in principle any non-African participation 
in the struggle. It is true that the leadership propounded the theory that 
other races had a part to play within their own racial groups, but it is also 
true that the P.A.C. message was understood by the mass of its followers 
as fairly straightforward anti-whiteism, and that it achieved much of its 
support for that reason. Reacting also to the cold war theories of the 
Communists they rejected any co-operation whatever with individual 
Communists. 

Recent developments in the Congresses and prospects for the future will 
be dealt with in Chapter 5. It is enough here to describe the influences which 
have been reflected in the two Congresses. At present each mirrors an 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

important aspect of the struggle, and neither has been able to unite the 
liberation forces behind it. 

Opposition Parties 

Caught between entrenched Afrikaner nationalism and the rising passions 
of African nationalism lies the rest of South Africa's splintered opposition. 
The programme of the United Party, the official parliamentary opposition, 
is readily available. Its slogan, 'white leadership with justice', associated 
with proposals for a unique form of 'race federation'-based not on separate 
territorial units but on separate political institutions-offers an alternative to 
apartheid aimed at ensuring continued white supremacy. The Pr·ogressive 
and the Liberal Parties propose to abolish all racial discrimination in 
political and economic rights, the chief difference between them being 
the Progressives' insistence on a qualified franchise, a rigid constitution 
and a strongly entrenched Bill of Rights. 

None of these parties has any hope of office as things stand. With slightly 
more than half the country's votes, the government party has two-thirds 
of the seats. At the last elections the Progressives and Liberals surprised 
many people by polling between them nearly ten per cent of the votes cast; 
but only one Progressive was elected. Their ·relative success in terms of 
votes cast, is explained by the fact that the elections were held shortly after 
the launching of the first campaign to boycott South African goods; and 
under the threat of expulsion from the Commonwealth. This led many 
whites to consider seriously whether their position in relation to the rest 
of the world was any longer tenable. 

Since then, with the relative return of economic confidence and prosperity, 
and the apparent inability of the rest of the world to take effective action 
against South Africa, the swing has been once again to the right. The 
Liberal, Progressive and United Parties have all lost support to the right. 
Dr. Verwoerd has managed to restore his image with the majority of the 
electorate, English-speaking as well as Afrikaners, as the strong man who 
can protect them from overseas attack and local uprising alike. It is clear 
that no internal factor, other than revolution, can remove the Nationalist 
government. There is no effective growing point within the parliamentaryframework. 

3. Legislation for Starvation 
T
T
HE chances of a revolution developing in South Africa depend largely 
on the effect of the government's efforts to implement apartheid and 
the kind of resistance movement which emerges from the present efforts to 
organise an underground struggle. 

The Pass Laws and Bantustan legislation a:re the cornerstones of the apart


heid programme. If South Africa is to be divided into 'black' and 'white' 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 1 I 

areas, the problem must be tackled on two fronts. One is the removal of 
Africans from the 'white' areas. In practice, since this cannot be achieved 
immediately without destroying the 'white' economy, it means denying the 
African any permanent stake in the 'white' areas, and making him a migrant 
worker until his labour is no longer needed. In the government's own words, 
the African must be regarded as a 'temporary sojourner' in 'white' South 
Africa. The attitude is well summed up in a speech made by the Hon. Mr. M. 

C. Botha, Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Development on 
August 30, 1962. The crux of the speech is contained in this sentence: 
'It is .. . the duty of every official entrusted with the task of Ban tu Administration 
assiduously to apply the basic principle . . . that the Bantu stay 
in the white areas can be justified on:ly by the need for his services there.' 
The other leg of the apartheid policy is the development of the Reserves 
so that they can support an even larger African population. There is no 
intention of increasing the amount of land held by Africans. The 
existing division into 'black' and 'white' areas would be maintained. Dr. 
Verwoerd firmly told a questioner in the House of Assembly on March 16, 
1963. In theory these two legs of the apartheid policy should march in step. 

The Economy of the Reserves 

The combined area of the 110 African Reserves-some of them no more 
than pockets of land surrounded by European farms or bordering on urban 
areas-constitutes 13 per cent of the area of South Africa. They contain 
none of the Union's known mineral resources, none of its major commercial 
or industrial centres, none of its ports. Originally they included some of the 
richest farming land in the country; but generations of over-crowding, poor 
farming and neglect have produced serious soil erosion and a steadily 
declining fertility. 

According to the 1960 census only 3 per cent of all adult male Africans 
are engaged as peasant farmers in the Reserves, but some 30 per cent of the 
African population lives in the Reserves. In 1950 the government appointed 
a Commission, under the chairmanship of Professor F. R. Tomlinson, to 
produce a 'comprehensive scheme for the rehabilitation of the Native 
Areas .. .' The Report was presented in 1955 in 18 volumes. The Commissioners 
went outside their terms of reference to argue the case for the 
establishment of complete separation between European and Bantu areas as 
the only alternative to full integration. Their report points out that by the 
year 2,000 A.D. South Africa will contain between 5 and 6 million whites and 
21 million Africans; and that unless something is done about it, 17 million 
Africans will be working in the 'European' areas. This, in the Commission's 
opinion, would be inconsistent with the survival of the European population 
as a separate racial entity. 

But despite its convictions, the Report was not able to present a plan for 
complete separation. Instead it recommended certain urgent measures to 
reverse the present trend to integration, with the implication that this is the 
best that can be done. These measures would ensure that by the end of the 
century 15 million Africans would be accommodated in the Reserves; while 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

the 'white' areas would carry 6 million Europeans, 6.5 million Africans, nearly 
4 million Coloureds and 1.4 million Asians. Thus in the 'white' areas the 
Europeans would still be outnumbered by two to one: it would still be 
necessary for them to face all the problems of a plural society which they 
are attempting to avoid through the apartheid policy. 

To achieve this rather limited objective, what would have to be done? Th.;! 
Commission estimated that £104 million would have to be spent in the first ten 
years, mainly on agricultural development and establishment of industry. 
About half the population of the Reserves would have to be removed from 
the land in order to rehabilitate it and establish economically viable farming 
units. Alternative means of livelihood would have to be found, not only 
for the 21-million people who would have to be removed, but for the other 
millions now working in the 'white' areas, who would be required to make 
their home in the Reserves. Over a hundred towns and cities would have to 
be established in the Bantu areas. There would have to be a crash programme 
of education and particularly agricultural training. These recommendations 
are based upon two assumptions: that the three British High Commission 
Territories would be included in the land made available for Bantu settlement; 
and that 'white' capital would be available for the development of 
industrial and other tertiary economic activities. The first has proved 
politically impossible; the second was rejected by the government on 
ideological grounds. 

The average sum spent during the last seven years on the Reserves has been 
less than £4 m. a year, as opposed to over £10 m. recommended by Tomlin-
son. A five-year plan was announced this year to cost £57 m. But of this 
sum, £38 m.-two-thirds-will be spent only on housing the surplus 
population removed from their land in the Reserves. Irrigation, by contrast, 
will absorb £3.5 m.; forestry, £4.5 m.; water conservation, £2 m.; and 
fencing, £4 m. The South African ,Budget for 1963 I4 makes provision for the 
expenditure of £9 m. on the Reserves. This is about 2 per cent of the budget; 
and if one subtracts the figures for pensions and schools, one per cent of the 
budget will be spent on economic development. This may be compared with 
16 per cent budgeted for South Africa's defence. 

As a substitute for European capital for industrial development in the 
Reserves, the government has a plan for 'Border industries'. This is a scheme 
to induce white industrialists to establish themselves on the borders of the 
Reserves to provide some local employment. As an inducement to such 
industry the government promises to allow a lower wage structure than in 
the rest of the country, to provide housing and basic services, and to give 
income tax concessions and tariff protection. A recent report of the permanent 
Committee on the Location of Industry said that 18,000 new jobs had 
been created in 1962, compared with 12,000 the year before. The government's 
target is 24,000 new jobs a year. 

It is clear that the present rate of advance does not approach even the 
limited recommendations of the Tomlinson Commission. Housing for workers 
in the 'border industries' absorbs by far the largest sums of such capital as 
is made available for the Reserves. The 'border industries' themselves will 
virtually ensure that industry will not develop inside the Reserves themselves. 


THE COMtNG STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

The vast majority of the residents of the 'rural villages' will remain dependent 
upon remittances sent home by migrant workers in the 'white' areas. 

Bantustans 'Self-government' 

That being so, perhaps one should be grateful that the 'self-government' 
proposed for the Bantustans is a facade rather than a reality. Were these 
territories indeed to be cut loose with an economic problems of insoluble 
proportions their future might be even blacker than it it. Six Bantustans 
already have territorial Authorities, the bodies which are intended to rule 
them. They are the Transkei, the Ciskei, the Tswana, the Lebowa, the Venda 
and the Mashangana, the first two in the Cape Province, the others in the 
Transvaal. Only the Transkei so far has a 'self-government' constitution. 
From this constitution we must judge the South African government's 
intentions for the political development of the Bantustans. 

The Transkei will have a Legislative Assembly of 109 members, of which 
64 will be Chiefs or Paramount Chiefs, and the other 45 elected by the votes 
of all Transkeian citizens, whether they live in the Transkei or not. The 
Cabinet is to be elected from the assembly, and there is provision for up 
to ten ministers. 11he assembly is thus to contain a majority of chiefs, 
whose position depends ultimately on the South African Government. The 
Parliament in Capetown will retain control over inter alia, defence, external 
affairs, currency, public loans and banking, the entry and control of police 
forces of the Republic charged with the maintenance of internal security, 
immigration, and the Transkeian constitution. 

The Transkei Assembly is gradually to assume control of its budget; such 
personnel in the police as may be transferred to its service; education, 
welfare, agriculture, land settlement; and control of magistrates and inferior 
courts dealing with matters affecting Africans only. One of the most disturbing 
aspects of this constitution is the extent to which it concentrates power 
in the hands of the small oligarchy of chiefs. Even the magistrates are to be 
appointed by the Civil Service Commission, itself a creation of the Transkei 
Assembly. But perhaps the fundamental constitutional reality of the 
Transkei's 'independence' is that all the laws passed by the Assembly require 
the South African President's assent; and that for the fulfilment of every 
one of the functions within its jurisdiction the Transkei Assembly will be 
economically dependent upon the South African Treasury. 

This Constitution was accepted by the Transkei Territorial Assembly in 
December, 1962, against strenuous opposition from Paramount Chief Sabata 
Dalindyebo of the Tembu people and two lesser chiefs. It was supported by 
the chairman of the Assembly Chief Kaiser Matanzima, a government-
designated chief. Sabata's opposition rests mainly on two principles denied 
in the constitution. He seeks a majority of elected members in the Assembly 
-a proposal defeated by only five votes when the Transkei assembly 
discussed the constitution. And he wants the establishment of a multi-racial 
society in the Transkei. Matanzima on the other hand, rigidly upholds the 
government's doctrine of a black racialism for the Transkei. 

The South African government knows that it may have created a 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

Frankenstein monster. Already Chief Matanzima has demanded the incorporation 
of virtually the whole of Natal into the Transkei; and has given 
notice that he intends to abolish the Bantu Education system in the territory. 
But for the moment the Transkei is much too weak to make anything like 
an effective standing against the government. What it may well do is to 
make it clear that the Bantustans cannot work without force. 

Means of Enforcement 

For there is no sign that the opposition to the Transkei constitution is 
declining. Since 1960 the territory has been ruled under a State of Emergency 
in the form of the now infamous 'Proclamation No. 400'. Under it, the 
following offences are punishable by a £300 fine or three years in prison: 
calling, addressing or attending a 'meeting' (defined as any gathering at which 
'more than ten natives are present at one time'), unless they have a permit 
from the government; entering or remaining in the Transkei if one is not a 
resident; failing to report the presence of anyone known to be or 'suspected 
of being' in the territory without a permit; or making any statement which 
is likely to have the effect of subverting 'the authority of the State, of a 
Native Commissioner, or any officer in the employ of the state or of any 
chief or headman'. Under the Proclamation any chief authorised by the 
Minister may order any African to remove himself and his household to any 
other place and may demolish his dwelling. Failure to comply with such 
an order carries the same penalties. In case anyone should question the 
validity of all this, 'no interdict or other legal process shall issue for the stay 
of any order, decision or direction made under the regulations'. Proclamation 
400 remains in force: in answer to a question in Parliament in February this 
year, the Minister of Bantu Administration said there was no intention of 
lifting it. 

These are the circumstances in which Transkei 'self-government' has been 
born. If the success of the Bantustan policy is the first article in the government's 
faith in apartheid, developments in the Transkei must break or justify 
that policy. If the Transkei experiment fails, apartheid lies in ruins. The 
government meanwhile continues to push ahead with what it calls 'the 
negative side' of apartheid. The instrument here is the complex web of the 
Pass Laws, embodied mainly in about six Acts. 

'Negative' Apartheid 

The Pass Laws, which had their ongm in legislation passed long before 
the Nationalist government came to power, were designed to control the 
movement of Africans into the 'white' urban areas. The present government 
has tailored them specifically to remove from the African any right to be in an 
urban area, and to refuse him the conditions for a stable settled life in th·:! 
'white' areas. This is not a by-product of apartheid: it is its stated aim. 
At present this means defining in detail the conilitions an African must 
fulfil to be allowed to live and work in a 'prescribed area'-in practice 
virtually all urban areas. The conditions are numerous and complex. It i 
worth detailing the most important; for it is these conditions which determine 
the lives and livelihoods of every African man, woman and child. 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

No African has the right to a work-seeker's permit in an urban area 
unless: 

(I) 
He has lived there cont-inuously since birth. 
(2) 
He has worked there continuously for one employer for ten years, or 
has been there continuously and lawfully for fifteen years. 
(3) 
He or she is the wife, unmarried daughter or son under eighteen of an 
African falling into the classes mentioned above and ordinarily resides 
with him. 
(4) 
He has been granted a permit to remain there. 
BUT if an African having these qualifications becomes unemployed, for 
any reason, whether thwugh retrenchment, dismissal or illness, he must report 
within 72 hours to the labour bureau. If he fails to do so, he is immediately 
'endorsed out' of the area, which means he has forfeited his right to seek 
work there. If he does report, he is given two weeks in which to find a new 
job after which he may •be 'endorsed out'. After a month ·Of such unemployment 
he must be 'endorsed out'. Twenty-six thousand Africans were 
'endorsed out' of Capetown between 1955 and 1960. From Alexandra Township 
in Johannesburg, 43,000 out of a total population of 93,000 have been 
forced ·out in the last five years. In May the decision was announced that 
all family accommodation there will be 'eliminated', and residence wil.l be 
'restricted to single Africans, including women domestic servants, to be 
housed in 8 hostels of 2,500 beds each' {S.A. Institute of Race Relations 
55/63).
Once an African takes employment however briefly elsewhere than in the 
town for which he 'qualifies', he loses his qualification. Thus Jack B., a family 
man born in Capetown, took a job over Christmas with a building firm in 
Paarl, because his own firm had retrenched for the holiday. When he returned 
he was 'endorsed out' of Capetown for having broken his record of 
continuous employment in Capetown. 
An African wife may live with her husband in a town if he has established 
his 'qualifications'. But to do so she must be able to prove that she• ordinarily 
and lawfully resides with him. Since African men are increasingly only being 
allowed to seek work in a town provided they take accommodation in the 
so-called 'batchelor' quarters, it is often impossible for their wives to establish 
'ordinary' residence with them. Nor may a wife be with her husband for the 
period he is establishing his 'qualifications'. She may visit him for periods 
of up to seventy-two hours without permission, though if she is picked up in 
town it is up to her to prove she has not been there for longer than seventy-
two hours. Special extensions of the seventy-two hours regulation may be 
granted for women who wish to conceive. 

Direction of Labour 

The present Pass Laws may come to be regarded as relatively humane, if 
the new Bantu Laws Amendment Bill becomes law. The Bill was announced 
by the Minister of Information, Mr. Waring, who described its purpose as 
being 'to reduce friction', and 'promote healthy race relations'. He said it 
was 'aimed at preventing Bantu being criminally prosecuted for offences of 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

an administrative nature'; and that the accent was on 'resettling people, 
especially surplus Bantu, in the Bantu homelands'. He confessed later that 
he had not himself read the Bill before giving the Press conference. At the 
time of writing the Bill is before Parliament. 

Amendments are proposed to nine existing Acts. These are some of the 
new provisions: 

No African, whatever his previous 'qualifications' i:s automa:tically entitled 
to seek work in any 'prescribed' area. Every African will require permission 
to enter and remain in employment. That permission may be refused or 
revoked if: 

1. 
The employment is of a class in respect of which the Minister has laid 
down that no Africans may enter contracts of service. 
2. 
The work is to be performed in an area in which the Minister has decided 
that no further Africans may be employed. 
3. 
The Minister has determined a maximum number of Africans who may 
be employed in any particular class of work, and the maximum has been 
reached. 
4. 
The Minister has decided that the number of Africans in the area 
concerned exceeds the reasonable labour requirements, and if the African 
concerned is on a list of names of people the local authority thinks should 
be removed, he will be ordered to leave. 
5. 
The African concerned comes from a labour source (i.e. an area) from 
which the Minister has decided no more labour is to be recruited for the 
prescribed areas. 
6. [t is deemed not to be in the interests either of the employer or the 
employed or the public interest that the contract of service shall continue. 
The only advantage an African born in a 'prescribed' area has over others 
is that be will be removed only after the others who are 'surplus' have left. 
Local authorities are to lose their right to allow African women to visit 
their husbands for longer than seventy-two hours. Workers who visit their 
wives in the Reserves will lose their right to return to tbe~r work in urban 
areas. Women have to fulfill most of the conditions which apply to men in 
order to be admitted to an urban area. Work-seeking permits will no longer 
be issued. Africans will be given the right to take up a certain class of 
employment with a certain empLoyer, and permission to work there will lapse 
when that employment ceases. No married quarters may be provided by any 
employer except with express permission. The Minister's personal permission 
is required for any African to be self-employed, as a casual labourer, pedlar 
or hawker, or as an independent contractor. 

The Bill makes provision for the establishment of 'depots' for adults and 
'youth centres' for juveniles, and requires that any African not in employment 
may be accommodated in one of these. Africans arrested for or convicted 
under one of the Urban Areas Acts or Labour Regulations may be detained 
in a depot or youth centre instead of a prison. The Bantu Affairs Commissioners 
may bold courts at such depots. Appeal against any decisions lies 
only to the Chief Bantu Affairs Commissioner of the area concerned. The 
definitions of 'idleness' and 'undesirable' are considerably widened, and 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

provide several new grounds upon which an African may be removed from 
a prescribed area. 

These are some of the provisions of a Bill which can only be described 
as a devise for establishing a system of direction of labour. If it becomes law 
no African will take a job unless the authorities sanction it. It will remove 
the last vestiges of security from Africans employed in the urban areas. It 
will allow the government to determine the supply and distribution of labour 
to all parts of the country. No African's job will be safe from a Ministerial 
decree. African residential and employment rights will be linked entirely 
to the labour needs of the 'white' economy. Alternative sources of employment 
will not be a relevant factor. Yet the incapacity of the Bantustans to 
cope with 'surplus' Africans remains a glaring and incontrovertible fact. 

4. The Economic Outlook 
I
I
N 1920, 40 per cent of the African adult male population of South Africa 
was classified as peasant farmers in the Reserves. In 1960 the figure was 3 
per cent. The urban African population today is over 4 millions. The structure 
of the mining industry makes it wholly dependent upon African labour. 
Seventeen per cent of skilled work, 66 per cent of semi-skilled and nearly 
all the unskilled work in industry is performed by Africans, Coloureds 
or Asians. 

To try to reverse this trend would appear to be impossible. It is nevertheless 
the stated aim of government policy. In addition to the direction of 
labour through the Pass Laws, the government has adopted three subsidiary 
lines of action. The establishment of 'border industries' is really a device for 
decentralising industry within the 'white' ecenomy in order that the workers 
so employed shall not settle in the 'white' areas. It is not intended to give 
the Africans their 'own' industry. In terms of government doctrine it is a 
temporary expedient. The effect upon the African worker is to reduce his 
bargaining position by forcing him into a convenient labour pool. 

Second, Africans are not allowed to operate effective trade unions. Under 
the Industrial Conciliation Act they are excluded from the definition of 'an 
employee'; and all negotiations on behalf of Africans is done by the Department 
of Labour. Strikes by Africans are illegal. African trade unions per se 
are not illegal, and several in fact exist. But the operation of the Pass Laws, 
the arbitrary powers placed in the hands of local authorities, the wide 
definition of an 'undesirable' African and the laws of trespass are invoked 
against any trade union official who performs his functions effectively. 
Among the casualties of African trade unionism are some of South Africa's 
unsung heroes.t 

The third, and perhaps the crudest measure of all, is the Job Reservation 

1 For a full analysis of trade unionism see Horrell South African Trade 

Unionism, published by S.A. Institute of Race Relations; and Doxy : The 

Industrial Colour Bar in South Africa. 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

Act, which gives the Minister of Labour the right to determine by decree 
that any class of job shall be filled only by members of a certain race, or to 
lay down a category of work in which not more than a certain proportion of 
workers may belong to a particular racial group. The object is to squeeze the 
Africans out of the lowest grades of work, making them 'redundant' in the 
'white' economy, and forcing other racial groups to take their place. For 
example, only whites may be employed as firemen and traffic policemen 
above the rank of constable lin the Capetown area, as liftmen in certain 
types of building in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Bloemfontein, or as skilled 
workers in the building industry in the Transvaal and the Free State. These 
are three of the twelve Determinations gazetted by the end of 1962. Few 
gain by this law, except white workers who have found it hard to compete 
for 'white' jobs in the past. 

Colour Bar Effect 

The inhibiting effect of the industrial colour bar on the efficiency and rate 
of growth of the South African economy has been remarked by economists 
from the 1920's onwards. The truth is that periods of expansion have been 
marked by a de facto breakdown in the colour bar-Africans, Asians and 
Coloureds in fact being employed in skilled work which is theoretically the 
preserve of the white worker. What is needed now is a serious study of the 
recent effects of the government's newest and most determined measures to 
reverse this process. The state of a country's gold reserves is no criterion of 
the rate of expansion of the economy, particularly in a gold producing 
country like South Africa; nor indeed are the figures of white immigration 
to a country whose laws inevitably produce a chronic shortage of skilled (i.e. 
white) labour. The Gold Reserves have risen to nearly £250 m. from £75 m 
in June 1961; and nearly 21,000 immigrants gave the country a net population 
gain of some 11,000 in 1962-a record under this government. Figures like 
these have given a wholly illusory impression of restored confidence and 
economic activity. It is worth looking at a number of other indices of 
economic activity. 

In January 1963 the report of the 'Froneman Committee' on 'foreign 
Bantu' was presented to Parliament. It contained the startling estimate that 
there are 505,000 black South Africans unemployed. That is about 10 per cent 
of the total labour force, and about 14 per cent of the African labour force. 
The government has always claimed that unemployment in South Africa 
is negligible. The fact that the Committee published its estimate is explained 
by the context: it was concerned to make the case for excluding 'foreign 
Bantu'. Of these the Report said there were some 800,000 in South Africa, 
186,000 of them women and children. If South Africa's 505,000 unemployed 
were to replace them, the country would need only 144,000 'foreigners'. The 
Committee's recommendations for the exclusion of 'foreign Bantu' though 
important, do not concern us here. The striking fact is the figure given for 
South African unemployment. 

The 1962 report of the merchant bank, Union Acceptances, contained 
these words by its Chairman, Mr. Sidney Spiro: 'Consumption per capita 
at the end of 1961, adjusted for falling money values, was actually lower 
than it was in 1956; and the greatest impact was taken in the durable field 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

-a sector on which ,fixed investment depends considerably. It is hardly 
surprising that private investment should hav.e ·stagnated when 11he total 
consumer market actually contracted'. In 1962 the economy recovered 
slightly to show a rise in the r.eal per capita income of 1.7 per cent. But 
the continued rise in the liquidity of the banks gave more evidence of the 
sluggishness of the economy. There was a heavy decline in loans and 
advances, and a record volume of money lying idle in the banks. The 
liquid assets ratio reached 53.6 per cent. These are some of the signs of 
a long-term decline in the rate of growth of South Africa's economy. It 
is not a post-Sharpville phenomenon. 

Decline of the Internal Market 

At the root of the decline lies South Africa's failure to develop an 
internal market. Between the years 1946 /7 and 1960/ 1, African earnings 
rose by 1 I per cent, and European earnings by 35 per cent. This means 
that the average African today receives £17.5 more per year than he did 
in 1946; while a European gets £257 more than in 1946. The average 
African earnings in 1961 were £182.5. In the ten years to 1948 African 
earnings rose to the level of a quarter of European earnings. But by 1956 
the ratio had fallen again to below what it was in 1938. In an article 
in the South African Journal of Economics in June 1962, Professor 

W. R. J. Steenkamp, Chairman of the Wage Board, said that, with a few 
exceptions, the real wages of Africans in the main urban centres, declined 
in the 1950's. 
The failure of Africans to share in the rising prosperity of South Africa 
is the result of the industrial colour bar, the denial of trade union rights 
and the pass laws. The total effect is 'dire poverty among African families, 
underfed and therefore inefficient labour, untrained and unused skills, and 
an anaemic consumer market.' ("Financial Mail," November 9, 1962.) A 
report (No. 172) of the Council for Social and Industrial Research showed 
that half the African families in the main urban centres live below the 
poverty datum line. In Johannesburg, where the minimum required to 
sustain a family of five was estimated at £23 per month in 1959, the 
average family income is still less than £17 per month. In Capetown it is 
estimated that a third of the Coloured famiUes and eighty per cent of the 
African families live below the poverty datum line. 

Opening the 1963 Rand Easter Show, Mr. Harry Oppenheimer declared: 
'It is only the European group in South Africa which has, as a whole, 
retained a reasonable standard of living.' The poverty of the African 
masses, he said, was the reason for the poor rate of expansion of the 
South African economy. It is not surprising that industrialists in South 
Africa are second only to the Africans themselves in demanding a rise in 
African wages. 

Malnutrition 

The level of African earnings means that the incidence of malnutrition 
diseases in parts of South Af11ica is the highest recorded in the world. The 
infant mortality rate in the Port Elizabeth Divisional Area in 1961 was 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRJCA 

480 per thousand live births: nearly half the babies born there died before 
they were •a year old. Reporting the figure, the area's M.o.H. explained 
that the rate had doubled in the previous year.1 In the eight main urban 
centres alone-there are no statistics for the rural areas-10,000 babies 
die every year from the deficiency disease of kwashiorkor. So serious 
were the manifest signs of poverty and malnutrition that a Conference 
on Poverty was called in Capetown in 1962. Doctors there described the 
situation as 'a severe crisis in child health', which needed immediate 
national action. African children die at twenty-five times the rate of white 
children between the ages of one and four. An average of forty children 
are taken each day to one children's hospital in Capetown in the last 
stages of gastro-enteritis. At the same hospital fifty-four per cent of the 
attendances show signs of severe malnutrition, rickets, tuberculosis or 
serious weight deficiency. 

Alarmed by evidence of poverty and malnutrition which came to light 
through isolated medical and social services, the "Rand Daily Mail' 
undertook an inquiry and published the results in October 1962. Here are 
some of the facts it bright to light, all of them checked and confirmed 
with the relevant authorities before publication: 

Fifty-seven per cent of Africans die before they reach five years; the 
equivalent figure for whites is five per cent. In a Port Elizabeth hospital 
an average of fifty children died each month from kwashiorkor. Fifty-four 
per cent of Capetown's Coloured children are underweight as a result of 
malnutrition. Tuberculosis is spreading at the rate of 160 new cases every 
day. A National Nutrition Research Institute survey showed that 22 per 
cent of all child patients suffered from malnutrition diseases. A University 
of Natal survey found signs of malnutrition in every one of 240 African 
workers they visited; they were earning £10 a month. A foundry reported 
a forty per cent rise in production within four months of starting a scheme 
to provide meals for its workers; a bus company gave out free soup and 
found absenteeism dropped by half. 

The 'Rand Daily Mail' survey also brought to light conditions in several 
keserves which had been badly hit by drought-a ten-fold increase in the 
incidence of pallagra, 15,000 others on the verge of starvation and so on. 
These reports were greeted by the Minister of Bantu Administration as 
'unfavourable and distorted'. He added that such malnutrition as existed 
was due to 'wrong eating habits'. The reply from Dr. 0. Marthiny, a 
director of the Nutrition Corporation put the problem in its true perspective. 
'The Reserves today are places where women, children and the aged 
live, depending on money sent home by their menfolk. But wages in the 
cities and on the farms make it impossible for them to support their 
families . .. Eighty per cent of all labourers on the Reef are themselves 
malnourished.' 

There is no doubt that the African standard of living, far from rising, 
is declining in South Africa. The Bantu Laws Amendment Act, if passed, 
will be the logical conclusion of a process which can only accelerate that 

The infant mortality rates for certain other countries, as recorded in the 1960 

U.N. Demographic Year Book are: India 185; Egypt 141 , Ghana 90, Nigeria 96. 

THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

decline. It will finally deny to Africans the right to work in any but the 
least profitable jobs in the 'white' economy; while the direction of labour 
will put an end to any organised attempt to raise wages in these categories 
of work. The government's past record provides no ground for confidence 
in its own machinery to raise African wages. The Reserves, meanwhile, 
cannot conceivably replace the 'white' economy as a source of earnings 
and therefore of purchasing power. 

Economic Capacity 

It seems, then that South Africa's economy will not recover anything like 
its full potential until the attempt at apartheid is abandoned. But before we 
conclude that the government must therefore be brought down by the weight 
of economic evidence and the force of economic laws, certain other factors 
have to be considered. 

The first is that apartheid could not be implemented under boom 
conditions. The administrative machinery required to remove Africans from 
industrial areas which were crying out for their labour would be overwhelming; 
and the machinery itself would be overwhelmed. The demand for labour 
would strengthen the African trade unions. In a declining economy, the 
unemployed are more easily 'endorsed out', labour can be more easily 
directed. Workers are more amenable if they know that to lose a job means 
to lose one's right to seek another and so to provide for one's family. From 
Dr. Verwoerd's point of view there is a lot to be said for an economy which 
is not too buoyant-prov,ided that his voters can be kept happy. Nor is 
that very difficult, since they consist largely of Afrikaner workers in the 
cities, protected by the Job Reservation Act, and farmers whose supply of 
labour is protected by restricting the right of Africans to work in the towns. 

What about South Africa's economic position in relation to the rest of the 
world? Up to f959 her exports other than of gold paid for about half her 
imports. Gold exports covered the gap, usually with little to spare. But 
'invisible' imports turned this favourable trade balance into an unfavourable 
balance on current account. This deficit was in turn covered over the years 
by a net import of capital. 

Today the position is less vulnerable. Exports other than gold (£480 million) 
now pay for about four-fifths of imports, while the output of gold has risen 
steeply: it will probably reach nearly £300 million this year. While this continues, 
South Africa is assured of a favourable balance on foreign account, 
particularly since imports are quickly responsive to controls. Even a comparatively 
large flight of capital, supposing exchange controls were lifted, 
could be borne if the trading picture continues as rosy as it is. It is true that 
a flight of capital would have serious psychological effects upon confidence 
and hence expansion. But internal savings could be mobilised on a 
considerable scale for development. 

Indeed this is already being done. Last year several major new expansion 
projects were announced. The most spectacular of these will be the harnessing 
of the Orange River for irrigation and hydro-electric power, a project 
costing £225 million. In addition £1,000 million is planned for spending 
mainly on expanding the three giant government corporations-ISCOR for 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTii AFRICA 

iron and steel, SASOL for making oil from coal, and the Electricity Supply 
Commission. There is no doubt that capital on this scale can be raised 
internally and will inject new life into the economy. 

There is also no doubt that it will require considerable African labour, 
and hence produce some relief from the increasing embarrassment of African 
unemployed. To Opposition claims that this will be incompatible with the 
government's apartheid policies, the reply is that migrant labour will be 
available from the Reserves for as long as the 'white' areas need it. The Bantu 
Laws Amendment Act will clearly make it easier to direct labour more 
efficiently to the areas of need. 

But although we must accept that the South African economy has an 
impressive capacity to survive the strains put upon it by government policies, 
it would be unrealistic to ignore two conditions for survival in the future. 
The first is that economic relations with the rest of the world remains undisturbed. 
And the second is that the rigid direction of labour envisaged in the 
proposed new legislation does not provoke open African resistance. 

5. Struggle and Defence 
T
T
HERE is now no hope of a non-revolutionary transfer of power in South 
Africa. In theory i1 is still possible to envisage a non-violent revolution, 
using weapons 1ike the strike and passive resistance, but in practice, with the 
administrative, military and economic power firmly concentrated in the 
hands of the government, such an approach is now virtually impossible. The 
Africans and their allies cannot by persuasion produce a change of heart in 
the white electorate; nor can they bring to bear the kind of economic 
sanctions that would force a change of mind. These are the facts the African 
Congresses are digesting at present. 

Whatever the means proposed to upset the status quo, whether by nonviolence, 
sabotage or terrorism, it is clear that the seat of leadership must be! 
underground. The country has moved away from open political parties, 
democratically led, with a public appeal based on overt campaigns and 
declared tactics. These open methods may continue to form a part of the 
overall campaign. But only a secret, highly disciplined underground leadership 
can now prevail. Over the past three years both the African National 
Congress (A.N.C.) and the Pan African Congress (P.A.C.) have been working 
-painfully and with catastrophic lapses in security-to turn themselves into 
this kind of movement. The current impression of political inactivity on the 
African front is illusory. It is a reflection of the trend towards underground 
organisation. 

Inherent in this phase is the gradual acceptance of the use of violence as 
a means of struggle. Spokesmen for both Congresses have given public and 
explicit warning of the inevitability of violence unless the rest of the world 
intervenes. Nelson Mandela, former Secretary-General of the African 


THE COMiNG STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

National Congress, conducting his own defence at his trial in November 1962, 
said: 'Government violence can do only one thing and that is to breed 
counter-violence. We have warned repeatedly that the government, by resorting 
continually to violence, will breed counter-violence among the people, 
until ultimately, if there is no dawning of sanity on the part of the government, 
the dispute between the government and my people will finish up by 
being settled in violence and force.' 

In October 1962 Mr. P. K. Leballo, General Secretary of the Pan African 
Congress, called a Press conference in London after his escape from South 
Africa. He warned: 'White South Africa is irrevocably set on its course to 
maintain and perpetuate white domination ... and the African people are 
equally determined to rid themselves of foreign rule at all costs. Given this 
situation, an armed clash is inevitable ... The African people recognise 
that to effect any change in South Africa, the present position whereby white 
South Africa holds the monopoly of military power must be changed. This 
can be changed only by our acquisition of the means of challenging that 
power.' 

But it is obvious that the minimum condition for effective action is unity 
among the African people. Certainly a place must be found in the struggle 
for non-Africans, both because it is unrealistic to ignore them, and because a 
purely racial clash will prolong and embitter the struggle itself. But non-
Africans cannot be fully effective until African unity has been achieved. 
This presupposes a movement which is led and controlled by Africans and 
which responds to the initiatives of its own membership, obviously very 
largely African. 

What are the chances for the growth of such a movement? The leadership 
of the Congresses remains at present deeply divided. In principle the issue 
between them is the role of non-Africans. In other respects their objectives, 
methods, manner of speaking, and degree of militancy are virtually indistinguishable. 
In practice the P.A.C. co-operates with Europeans it trusts no 
less than does the A.N.C.: indeed its admission to membership of a European, 
Mr. Patrick Duncan, goes very much further than the A.N.C. has done. But 
the fact is that non-Africans have not in the past been content to commit 
themselves wholeheartedly to an African leadership. They have been a 
divisive factor precisely because they have not been responsive to the African 
understanding of the local situation. They have tried to impose theories and 
patterns of their own. They have tried to mould the African movements, 
and to use them as a platform for their own beliefs. 

The Communists 

The principal offenders in the past have been the Communists. Believing 
as they do that the revolution cannot succeed until the 'objective' conditions, 
dogmatically defined, are right, they are unable to act pragmatically. They 
insist that the struggle is essentially a class struggle, which must be led by 
'class-conscious workers and peasants' of all races. Their attempt to explain 
the reactionary politics of the Afrikaner worker is one of the most tortuous 
in the Marxist vocabulary. But the ordinary politically-conscious African 
knows that this struggle is not primarily a class struggle: it is a struggle for 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

political rights for himself, and for Asians and Coloureds. The denial of 
economic and other rights follows from the lack of political rights. The 
principal qualification for a successful leadership is not whether it is 'class 
conscious', but whether it can command national support, and whether it 
can organise efficiently. 

But the point here is not primarily whether the Communists are right or 
wrong. The point is that they confuse and therefore divide the movement. If 
they were content to accept majority leadership until conditions were established 
in which they would be free to propagate their political views, their 
role would be uncontroversial. But their own doctrine forbids them to do 
this. Their role as they see it now is to 'educate' the movement so that the 
revolution itself should be controlled and led by 'class-conscious', meaning 
Communist, elements. That process is inevitably divisive. It involves the use 
of 'pressure-group' tactics to impose standards upon the African political 
leadership which are irrelevant to the needs of the struggle. It entails intrigue 
and manoeuvre against 'non class-conscious elements', and the introduction 
of organised factions on issues which are not germane to the South African 
struggle. 

It is true that the Communist Party and its members in the Congress 
Alliance do not claim to lead the struggle. They declare that 'the leadership 
of the (Congress) movement is and always has been the African National 
Congress'. But they insist also that 'although there is no formal relationship 
between (the Communist party and the A.N.C.) the masses of the people 
increasingly recognise that together they form the leading forces in the 
freedom struggle ... a new unity is growing in practice between them.1 
But meanwhile a new journal, calling itself Assagai (s1c) published in London 
makes no bones about claiming the A.N.C. for the international Communist 
movement. 'We see the nationai struggle as merely the first step towards 
socialism ... We believe that in our National struggle .. . the foundation 
for the next step-that is a socialist society-must and can now be laid ... . 
Participation in the revolu~ionary struggle ... must be the right of everyone 
who honestly desires ... freedom . It ca,nnot be the sole right of Marxists. 
But such a broad alliance will be at its strongest and best if led by the most 
advanced sections of the workers in close alliance with the peasants, who 
will constantly review the current situation in the light of scientific analysis 
and practical knowledge .. .' The second issue of Assagai concludes with an 
offer of 'revolutionary writings on Guerilla Warfare' and a list of quotations 
from Lenin, together with one from Robert Burns. 

Eq ually rigid, and for the same kind of motives, are the doctrinaire anti-
Communists who refuse to work with a Communist in any context. They 
conceive it as a major part of their work to warn African po1itical leadership 
of the dire results of associating with the sinister Reds. Both Communism 
and anti-Communism have sown in South Africa the seeds of a dogmatic 
approach to the immediate struggle which could divide the resistance forces 
as deeply as they were divided in Spain in the 1930's. That, above all, is 
the situation which anyone concerned with the interests of the South 
African peoples, rather than with Cold War priorities, must seek to avoid. 

See 'International Bulletin', issued by S.A. Communist Party, December, 1962. 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

There is one other extraneous factor which could also become divisive, 
again because it imposes irrelevant standards of leadership. This is the 
doctrinaire 'Africanist' who believes the struggle can be waged as though 
South Africa were Ghana, Nigeria or Nyasaland. There is some danger 
of African governments to the north attaching conditions to their support 
which would not be appropriate to the situation in South Africa. Non-
Africans cannot be excluded from the struggle, provided they accept their 
role as individuals in a primarily African movement; and denunciation of 
co-operation with non-Africans as 'moderation' and a denial of the 'African 
Personality' is mistaken and doctrinaire. 

Sabotage and Poqo 

Both Congresses claim to have members rece1vmg trammg in sabotage 
and guerilla warfare outside South Africa. Two separate organisations, 
already claim responsibility for acts of sabotage. They are Umkonto We 
Siswe, claimed by the African National Congress, and a body calling 
itself the National Liberation Committee. In both, Europeans and other non-
Africans, as well as Africans, are involved. It is fair to say that the 
differences between them revolve once again round the issue of Communism. 

Information about the extent of sabotage is not easily available. Several 
hundred Africans have appeared in court this year on charges connected 
with sabotage, some of them schoolboys. Four have been sentenced to death 
for sabotage, another six for the attempted murder of Chief Matanzima. 
Many others have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment of between 
ten and twenty-five years. The Johannesburg 'Sunday Times' Political 
Correspondent reported on March 10 1963 that twenty-six Africans had 
been sentenced to a total of 404 years' imprisonment for sabotage since 
January. 

What is Poqo? Every week during March and April, 1963, scores of 
Africans were arrested by the police on suspicion of belonging to Poqo, and 
in two weeks in May over 2,000 were arrested. Police authorities have 
announced confidently that the movement has been crushed. The trials are 
continuing. At first the A.N.C. denied that the movement had any real 
support. More recently, as evidence of apparent widespread sympathy came 
in, it has vigorously attacked the movement as racialist, opportunistic and 
undisoiplined. In March the Vice-President of the P.A.C., Mr. Potlake 
Leballo announced from exile in Basutoland, that Poqo was led and 
controlled by the P.A.C. And in May the 1963 Bantu Laws Amendment 
Act laid down that for the purposes of the Illegal Organisations Act, Poqo 
would be regarded as the successor to the P.A.C. 

As far as one can judge, Poqo is led by former members of the P.A.C., 
who may have deviated from it after the Congress was banned. The name 
means 'we stand alone' or 'pure'. The movement's straightforward racialism, 
fortified with a tendency to atavistic (Xhosa) tribalism, has a strong relationship 
to the cruder interpretations of the P.A.C. doctrine that each racial 
community should wage its own separate struggle, and none at all to the 
non-racial, class doctrines of the A.N.C. There is nothing whatever to suggest 
that the government's claim that communists are behind the movement is 
anything but a ludicrous reflex action. 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

Poqo recruits, for its local leaders as well as rank and file, among the 
least sophisticated sections of the population. Its appeal is particularly 
strong among the worst casualties of apartheid-the chronically 'illegal', the 
unemployed, the men from the Transkei who are forced to live without 
their families, the migrants from starvation in the Reserves who find themselves 
debarred from finding work elsewhere. Many of them are physically 
and emotionally crippled by the rootlessness of their existence. It is not 
difficult to understand the appeal of a secret exclusive organisation, rooted 
in the emotional security of a ritual tribal past, and committed to the 
destruction of these responsible for their despair. 

This interpretation of the growth of Poqo is given weight by the fact 
that it apparently operates at present exclusively in the Western Cape and 
the Transkei. It is true that this was always the chief stronghold of the 

P.A.C. but the gr-owth of this extreme and sometimes blind form of 
terrorism is a product of the government's intensified efforts to remove 
the Africans from the Western Cape to the Transkei. It is comparatively 
recent that Africans have come in large numbers to work in the Cape; this 
makes it that much easier for the government to shift them back, especially 
since the country's 'Cotoured' population is concentrated in the Cape. The 
spread of Poqo between the Transkei and the different towns of the Western 
Cape is accomplished partly through the good offices of the government, 
which shunts the Africans constantly between these areas. 
Most of the detailed information about Poqo became available at the 
hearing of the Commission of Inquiry into the Paarl riots, and at the trials 
hearing of the Commission of Inquiry into the Paarl riots in September 1962, 
and at the trials of Poqo members subsequently arrested in the Cape and 
the Transkei. It is clear that the first target of the movement is the network 
of government informers and the government-appointed chiefs in the 
Transkei. In Paarl, police had suspended inquiries into eight Poqo murders 
for lack of witnesses. Four of them were acknowledged police spies, three 
were coloured women allegedly killed for 'distracting the men', and the 
eighth was a white store-keeper killed allegedly to prove members' willingness 
to kill whites. It is clear that at least part of the movement's strength 
derived from very violent intimidation, which has provoked considerable 
resentment among Africans, especially in Capetown, but witnesses at the 
various trials and at the Paarl Inquiry estimated that most of its members 
joined voluntarily, themselves excluded, of course. Witnesses at the Inquiry 
were heavily disguised and guarded, and several witnesses for Poqo trials 
were beaten up or disappeared. 

Poqo activities so far do not give the impression of efficient planning 
or organisation. None of the attacks, with the possible exception of one, have 
been armed with modern weapons or properly planned. They have given 
the strong impression of lashing out with an almost suicidal lack of 
foresight, planning or skill. With the exception of the white store-keeper 
killed in Paarl, none of the attacks on Europeans have been disciplined acts, 
but rather the result of spontaneous action sparked off by an immediate 
situation. It is probably truer to suggest that the P.A.C. is trying to establish 
control over Poqo than that the P.A.C. leadership inspired and controls 
its activities. 


THE COMING STRUGGLE .FOR SOUlli AFRICA 

Poqo represent a new mood-of bravado, desperation, extreme black 
racism. In a recent conversation an African woman with, as it happened, no 
particular grievance of her own, said: 'What make a man and gives him 
self-respect is the ability to protect and look after his wife and children. 
My husband can't do that any more. If the government orders me out of 
Capetown tomorrow, he can do nothing but wave me good-bye. If they 
order him back to the Reserves he can do nothing to keep the family 
together unless we all want to starve. So life is not worth living. We are 
helpless unless we fight back, and may as well lay down our lives in 
the fight.' These are brave words, seldom means, but in the case of Poqo 
they apparently express the movement's inspiration literally. 

As it is organised today Poqo cannot bring about the revolution. Instead 
it is likely to provoke a phase of repression which will make previous police 
action look like the controlled exasperation of the London police at a 

C.N.D. rally. But no one should delude themselves into thinking that the 
South African struggle can be won without provoking the authorities to 
ruthlessness on the Algerian scale. Indeed, the analogy may be carried 
further. The struggle in South Africa starts at the stage reached in Algeria 
towards the end: with the confrontation of the F.L.N. and the O.A.S. In 
South Africa the extreme manifestation o.f Algerie Francaise is embodied 
in the Afrikaner nationalist government which dares not capitulate. But 
in South Africa the equivalent of the O.A.S. has access to all the modern 
weapons of the State and of war. They will be more difficult to defeat than 
the O.A.S. There is no General de Gaulle to undermine them. 
But however inappropriate a means of national struggle, Poqo has in 
one vital respect changed the perspective of South African politics. It has 
shaken the confidence of Europeans in their ability to maintain their 
position in peace. It has introduced the frightening spectre of sudden, 
secret attack illgainst which normal precautions are useless. Ordinary 
people for the first time fear for themselves and their children. They are 
facing the fact that the future holds battle stations, a defence build-up, and 
a continuous state of peril and conflict. The pre-1960 Congresses, seem, in 
retrospect, to have been no more than nasty, noisy gatherings, sources of 
resentment and irritation rather than of fear and foreboding. Poqo has 
revived all the European fears of the 'dangerous black masses.' 

Armed Forces 

The reaction of the government which anticipates and reflects these fears 
is a defence build-up which costs nearly twice as much as was spent by South 
Africa at the height of the last war. The budget for 1962/3 provided for the 
expenditure of £60m. on defence, which together with the v·ote on police and 
prisons, brought the total 'security' vote to £86m. The Minister of Defence, 
Mr. Fouche, announced at the time that this was simply the beginning of 
the expansion. So it has proved. The 1963 I4 budget provides for an increase 
of £17.5 m. on defence alone. Part of these sums are spent in buying 
abroad, modern aircraft, helicopters and naval craft largely from Britain 
and France. They are designed, according to Mr. Fouche, to increase the 
striking power of the navy ten-fold 'in the next few years'. The striking 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

power of the Defence forces, he said, had already been increased to twenty 
times what it had been two years before. 

Much of this expenditure, the government insists, is for external defence, 
not for internal security. It is made necessary by South Africa's commitment 
to the West, and more recently, by the threat of 'invasion' by the independent 
African States. The latter claim has been particularly emphasised since the 
formation, on paper at least, of the African High Command, by the 
'Casablanca' group of African states. Whether or not the government 
believes in the possibility of such an invasion, it has provided a reason for 
the purchase of Victor bombers, Mirage jet fighters and anti-submarine 
craft. 

Leaving aside this aspect of South Africa's defence-it is, in fact 
difficult to see how equipment of this kind could be effective in combatting 
internal revolution-the provisions made specifically for internal security 
are sufficient to prove the government's serious intentions. By the end of 
June 1963, 10,000 fully trained troops will be available for combat within 
an hour. Two years hence the number will have increased to 20,000. A 
recent £20 m. deal between the government and African Explosives, a 
subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries, will make the country self-
sufficient in ammunition and small arms, including automatic weapons. 
From this year, 19,000 young men will be called up each year for training 
in the Citizen Force. 

In addition to these, there exist a number of semi-official local defence 
organisations, supported by the government. The oldest of these are the 
Commandos, part-time volunteers who make themselves available for call-up 
in times of need, and who are given training in the use of firearms. 206 o£ 
these units existed by the end of March 1963, some of them special 'Englishspeaking' 
Commandos. Members have been showing their enthusiasm 
recently by asking to be equippd with automatic weapons and armour. A 
recently proposed addition to the Commandos is an air commando, 'to 
provide an opportunity for keen private pilots with their own light aircraft, 
to serve our country' (Mr. Fouche. in the Senate, 15/3/63). 

Finally, newly organised Police Reserve and Home Guards will add to 

the strength of volunteer defence. They may be called upon for patrol 

services in their own neighbourhoods, for co-operation with the police in 

times of emergency, or to do guard duty at key industries which might 

be threatened with sabotage. They will be given training in the handling 

Jf firearms, and on their powers of arrest. In April the government 

announced the revolutionary step of forming a special police reserve for 

Coloured people and Indians, while a special Bantu Reserve or Home Guard 

was being considered'. It can ·be predicted with some confidence that these 

units will not be armed: even so their formation will carry risks for the 

government-as well as the possibility, clearly the hope, of winning some 

non-whites to the side of 'law and order'. 

There can be no doubt that preparations on this scale anticipate a 
state of civil war. In 1961 the Minister of Defence, Mr. Fouche made 
the point: 'In the same way as world powers are continually preparing 
for war, so South Africa intends to be ready for internal trouble'. 



THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

6. Proposals for Policy 
F
F
EW people in Britain still need persuading about the evils and dangers 
of apartheid. But there remains a wide gap between public feelings and 
official policies. Public opinion is unsure what kind of policies might be 
effective to change the trend of events in the Republic, so that pressure 
for a change of British policy remains relatively ineffectual. And the government, 
:informed by .similar doubts, finds it more convenient to protect 
British interests by doing as little as it dares and equivocating whenever 
possible. This will remain the situation until the public and the government 
are persuaded both of the danger attaching to Britain's equivocal policies, 
and of the possibility that alternative policies might produce positive results. 
Mr. Harold Wilson's announcement in March 1963 that a Labour government 
would not continue the sale of arms to South Africa is the first 
fruit of such a reappraisal. 

However, alternative policies can be formulated, but their acceptance 
depends in the first place on making people understand that there is not 
the slightest chance of getting the present South African regime to change 
its policies 'by persuasion', as was advocated recently by the British and 
American permanent representatives (Sir Patrick Dean and Mr. Adlai 
Stevenson) at the United Nations.l Dr. Verwoerd repeatedly stresses that 
the Republic's policy ·On apartheid is 'like granite'. It is important to avoid 
making the mistake about Dr. Verwoerd that was made in the 1930's about 
Hitler, the mistake of not taking these leaders at their word. Verwoerd's 
'Kampf' is as resolute and inflexible as Hitler's. Precious years were 
squandered by the Men of Munich who also believed in 'policies of 
persua·sion'. 

There can be no change of heart in South Africa; people who feel 
themselves to be surrounded in their laager by vastly superior, hostile forces 
do not surrender by persuasion from abroad. Nor are their fears entirely 
unjustified. The situation of the white community in the Republic would 
change drastically a:s the result of a change in the status quo. The destruction 
of three centuries of white privilege is a revolutionary act. It is the 
lesson of history that privileged classes do not give way in the teeth of 
revolution. There is no reason to suppose that white South Africans will 
behave differently. 

Four other important facts must be taken into account in the formulation 
of British policy. First, there is no longer any hope of avoiding a violent 
conflict in the Republic: indeed, it has already started. Second, neither side 
can hope to defeat the ·other finally without help from abroad. Third, the 
only chance of preventing the struggle from becoming purely racialist is 
by limiting its duration, which, again, can be achieved only by the right 
kind of external intervention. Fourth, external intervention of some kind 
in South Africa is as inevitable as :it was in Spain during its civil war. 
The only doubt is whether the tragic Spanish pattern needs to repeat itself 
in South Africa. 

, The Guardian, May 13, 1963. 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

What will .be Britain's role in the coming struggle for South Africa? 
Her involvement is already established; how she wm carry out the responsibilities 
of her involvement r·emains in doubt. On this depends not only 
what happens in South Africa, but probably also what happens in the rest 
of the continent. Africa cannot remain neutral in the struggle, even if 
Britain thinks she can. And Africans will react strongly to British policy, 
since they feel themselves directly involved. Thus the challenge of South 
Africa is also a challenge to Britain's future influence in Africa, and 
throughout the non-aligned world. It is a challenge which the Commonwealth 
will certainly have to face, and on which it may well founder. 
Already some African states are considering whether their own membership 
of the Commonwealth might be affected by the South Africa issue. It is 
only a matter of time bef•ore the issue is sharply raised inside the association, 
where the African members will certainly have the support of the majority 
of the Asians, and poss·ibly Canada too. 

Policy for Arms 

Some of the decision\'> that need to be taken in formulating a policy 
towards South Africa are Britain's aione; others involve her allies in the 
West, and especially the United States. The most immediate and practical 
question is the sale of arms to the Verwoerd regime. There can be no 
justification for continuing this practice. Employment and profits :in the 
British arms' industry cannot provide the sole criterion of policy. Arms 
shipments have been stopped to Israel and Egypt, to the Batista regime in 
Cuba, and to the Communist countries. There are many precedents for 
stopping arms exports; :indeed, the practice of licensing arms exports is an 
acknowledgement of the need to make arms exports subject to overall 
policy. Nor •is it possible to distinguish between arms for purely internal 
use and for external defence. For one thing it is clear .that arms sold under 
the second category are being adapted for use in local suppression. It 
must be remembered, too, that South Africa's capacity to withstand future 
attempts to implement international decisions-which are likely to arise 
over South West Africa-depends on the strength of her Air Force and 
Navy. Britain need consult nobody about placing an embargo on the export 
of arms. Every moral and political consideration points to the importance 
of such an embargo. 

But Britain's arms policy is only one aspect of her ambivalence towards 
South Africa. It is reflected also in the dual role given to the British 
Ambassador to South Africa who is at the same time High Commissioner 
for the three Protectorates-Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland. This 
duality in the past has invariably meant the subordination of British responsibilities 
in the Protectorates to her interests in the Republic. F·or more 
than half a century these territories, which lie either wholly or partly inside 
the Republic, have been aUowed to stagnate, politically and economically. 
Until very recently they shared none of the constitutional or economic 
advance of the other British territories in Africa, with the result that they 
are now highly vulnerable to South African pressures. The argument that 
the 'dual role' offers the best chance of looking after the Protectorates' 
interests is not supported by their history. How, indeed, can a diplomat 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

whose primarly responsi·bility it is to maintain good relations with the 
Republic be expected to stand up vigorously for the rights of the Protectorates 
where these conflict-as they must increasingly do-with those of 
South Africa? 

Britain is clearly in a dilemma over the Protectorates. She is now committed 
to speeding up their economic and constituti·onal development to 
enable them to achieve internal self-government as quickly as possible, and 
she is defending the rights of political refugees from the Republic to seek 
asylum in the protectorates. But self-governing protectorates are likely to 
make Britain's task more and not less difficult, for she will then be expected 
to provide protection for the Territories even if their self-governing legislatures 
embark on policies hostile to the Republic. If she tries to dissuade 
the Protectorates' governments she will incur their hostility· if she does not 
she will incur South Africa's. Yet these conflicting i~terests are n~ 
expected to be reconciled by the same person -the Ambassador in Pretoria. 

Policy for the Protectorates 

Despite economic advance, especially in Swaziland, all three Protectorates 
will for some time remain dependent on South Africa for trade, communications 
and especially for jobs. More than half of Basutoland's adult male 
poulation depend for their livelihood on work in the Republic. But South 
Africa is presently engaged in a policy of eliminating 'foreign Bantu' 
in order to find jobs for her own unemployed. Politics apart, therefore, 
the need for a massive economic and technical aid programme for the 
Protectorates is an urgent prior.ity. Here is a policy that Britain should 
actively pursue. She should seek as a matter of deliberate policy-both 
in order ·to redress the wrongs of the past half century of neglect and to 
protect her wards against the tides of apartheid -to devote a considerable 
part of her overseas aid to the High Commission Territories. But this can 
be done effectively only if there is a .drastic change in the quality of the 
administration. Each territory should be given high-ranking governors with 
energy and influence to co-operate with the new Protectorates' governments 
in speeding up development. 

The question .of security is much more difficult. So long as Britain remains 
the protector she must be ready to defend the three territories against 
direct or indirect pressures. This need has increased in recent months. In 
April, 1963, Dr. Verwoerd spoke openly of 'retaliation' against the Protectorates 
because they offered sanctuary to 'hostile forces'. The government 
supporting paper, Die Burger said on 4 April, 1963: 'For South Africa, 
actively hostile frontiers are matters of life and death. It should be 
prevented by all avail-able diplomatic and economic means and, in the last 
resort .. . by military action'. Once the Protectorates become self-governing 
the need might arise for their frontiers to be guaranteed not only by Britain 
but possibly by the United Nations or, at least, by a group of powerful 
nations chosen by the Protectorates' governments themselves. Such an 
international guarantee, reinforced perhaps by an 'international presence' in 
the form of technical and military personnel, could stabilize the fr.ontiers 
in this area. 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

Diplomatic Policy 

Britain's conception of the role of her Ambassador to South Africa 
needs to be reconsidered, quite apart from his position as High Commissioner 
for the Territories. It is sometimes argued that Western diplomats 
can exercise a 'moderating influence' ·On the Republic's government by 
maintaining good relations with it. The shallow optimism of this view has 
already been stressed. What is often not realised is the positive harm 
it can do. The main effect of maintaining 'cordial relations" with the 
Verwoerd regime is to make white South Africans feel less isolated, more 
secure in .thejr relations with the West, and hence less inclined to accept 
the need for making radical changes. Mr. Macmillan's 'wind of change' 
speech in Capetown in 1960 is sometimes quoted as an example of the 
effectiveness ·Of British influence. This is a facile view. Important though 
the ·speech was in other respects, it had no practical effect on the policies 
of the Verwoerd regime; and in so far as it had any impact on the thinking 
of South Africans, it was almost entirely due to its .implied thTeat of a 
possible withdrawal ·Of British support. It jolted South Africa for a moment 
because it held out the danger of complete isolation. But every time a 
British Ambassador emphasizes the 'important mutual strategic interests' 
between the two countries (as Sir Hugh Stephenson, the new Ambassador 
to South Africa, did in his first public speech in May, 1 963), the Republic 
heaves a sigh of relief and gets on with the job of applying apartheid. 

Maintaining good ruplomatic relations with South Africa should no longer 
be a primary aim of British, or jndeed of Western, policy. Indeed, there 
are many pwminent people in South Africa, who would not be regarded 
as 'extremists', who argue that the time has come to put South Africa 
'beyond the pail' of the civilized world. They believe that a collective 
decision to isolate South Africa iliplomatically might have the effect of 
making white South Africa realise the vulnerability of its position, especially 
if it were seen as a prelude to international sanctions. Those who take this 
v:iew argue that this action would be morally justified in the case of South 
Africa, because it is the ·Only country in the world where authoritarianism 
is based officially on racial disC'fimination. 

Policy for Sanctions 

Finally, how should Britain react to the growing Afro-Asian pressure 
for international sanctions against South Africa? Hitherto Britain and the 
United States have actively opposed this proposal. The South African 
government claims that such action would be illegal under Article 2. 
paragraph 7 of the United Nations Charter, which states: 'Nothing contained 
in the present Charter shall auth.orize the U.N. to intervene in any matters 
which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state, or shall 
require the members to submit such matters to settlement under the present 
ChaTter. This principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement 
measures under Chapter 7'. Chapter 7 concerns action, on the part of the 
General Assembly and the Security Council, 'with respect to threats to the 
peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression'. Calls for U.N. 
action against South Africa are generally based on the claim that the 
government's policies represent a threat to the peace under Chapter 7 of 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

the Charter. By voting for the 1962 U.N. resolution calling for sanctions 
against South Africa, two-thirds of the world's nations imply an acceptance 
of this view. 

But the difficulties of applying a trade boycott are immense, especially 
tor South Africa's chief trading partners. Neither Britain, France, the United 
States nor West Germany could afford to declare a unilateral boycott 
without serious damage to their economies. To do so would throw their 
own workers out ,of jobs and see South Africa's trade diverted to rivals. 
It is certainly unrealistic to expect BTitain, acting on her own, to end her 
trade with South Africa. This is a matter which must be undertaken in 
concert with South Africa's other major trading partners. It is also cleaT 
that an effective boycott would require agreement between the major world 
powers, even if the U.N. weTe the means of enforcement. In practice the 
Soviet bloc is unlikely to refuse to take part in sanctions: it is the Western 
powers who are dragging their feet. 

The United States administration shares Britain's ambivalence about 
economic sanctions, but the emphasis is slightly different. The argument 
against sanctions Tests less upon the trading and financial interests at stake 
than upon the fear of losing a reliable ally in the cold war. It is true that 
the United States has about £400m. invested in South Africa-some of it 
earning, according to Mr. Marcus Banghart of the Newmont Mining Company, 
an annual profit of 27 per cent-and 16 per cent of South AfTica's 
imports come from the United States. But this is a small economic stake 
compared with that of Britain, which has £1,000 m. worth of investment 
and supplies nearly half of South Africa's imports. Thus those in the 
Kennedy Administration who oppose American commitment against the 
Verwoerd regime are moved more strongly by the 'strategists' than by 
the financiers. 

South Mrica's Lobby 

Meanwhile, the organised lobby against outside intervention is growing 
in all the Western capitals. The South African Information Services are 
hard at work in financial and government circles, stTessing both the 
economic stake the West has in South Africa, and the strategic value of 
the Republic to the West. Their work is supplemented by the South Africa 
Foundation, an ·Organisation of industrialists and businessmen whose 
declared purpose is to 'pTesent South Africa abroad in its true perspective' 
by adopting a 'non-political' approach to the economic prospects offered 
to foreign investors in the Republic. In practice the major energies of the 
Foundation are devoted to countering suggestions for outside intervention, 
and thus to minimising the dangers of the situation in South Africa. No one 
should underestimate the effect in financial and government circles of the 
efforts of these rich and powerfuLly supported organisations. Their influence 
however will have to be weighed against the increasing and united pressures 
from the Afro-Asian world backed by the Soviet bioc. Nor should we ignore 
the possibility that the African states might embark upon action of their 
own. This may include the refusal of overflying rights to South African 
aircraft, or aircraft of other nations destined for South Africa. African 
pressures against South Africa could well come to be extended against 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

other nations which continue ~o maintain full relations with South Africa. 

What kind of sanctions could be effective against South Africa? Probably 
the quickest and the least damaging to world trade patterns would be an 
embarg<> ·on the sale of petrol and other fuel oils. At present the government 
corporati.on, SASOL, making oil from coal, is South Africa's only local 
source of oil; but this constitutes a negligible percentage of its total requirements. 
But since there is littJ.e chance of agreement between the oil 
producers not to supply South Africa, the embargo would have to be 
enforced. The simplest way of doing this would be by imposing a blockade 
of South African ports. 

How would a blockade work? The U.N. could invite all its members 
who control navies to con~ribute suitable ships to maintain patrols outside 
the territorial waters of South Africa. These would prevent any ships or 
tankers (depending on whether the embargo were to be total, or limited to 
oil supplies) from leaving or entering the Republic's ports. They would 
confront ships and order them to turn r<>und-as President Kennedy did 
in his brief embargo of Cuba. If they refused they would be boarded and 
taken in tow. If they resisted boarding they might have to be attacked, 
though it is hardly likely that this would be necessary. Such a naval 
blockade could be mounted by detachments from the United States, Britain, 
the Soviet Union, the Scandinavian countries, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, 
the U.A.R. and Canada. What could the Verwoerd regime do against 
such a blockade? It could not hope to attack the blockading ships fwm 
the air, since South Afr·ica's planes would be no match f.or the aerial defence 
available to modern navies. South Africa would, in fact, be helpless. It is 
es·timated that her own oil and other fuel resources could not maintain her 
industries and transport for more than about four to six months. This 
period is too short to produce serious starvation conditions. But if famine 
threatened, it would be possible to soften the blockade to allow food ships 
to pa•ss under supervision. In practice the government would be unlikely 
to try to hold out to the bitter end, if only because it would rapidly lose 
support from the white as well as the black population. The chief advantage 
of a blockade is that it w<>uld avoid the long drawn out strangulation 
of voluntary trade sanctions unevenly applied, and it would minimize the 
period of disruption of world trade patterns. 

But there are serious difficulties which would have to be considered before 
embarking on a blockade. The High Commission territories and the 
Rhodesias receive a large part of their trade through South African ports; 
and alternative routes would have to be found for them. The Portugesecontwlled 
ports <>f Lourenzo Marques, Beira, Lobito and Luanda could be 
used by South AfTica to evade the blockade; and the U.N. would have to 
be prepared to 'police' these ports to see that the supplies which enter them 
are limited to the requirements ·Of the territories which they normally serve. 
Thirdly, however limited the period of the blockade, the effect upon South 
Africa's chief trading partners might be considerable. Other nations might 
have to be prepared to help by replacing markets and supplies to t'hese 
countries, at least temporaTily. 

Even supposing pol~tical agreement for a programme of sanctions had 
been secured, these and many other technical questions would have to be 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTII AFRICA 

studied. There is no reason why an attempt should not be made at the 

U.N. to answer them, even before political agreement for sanctions has been 
reached. For example, the newly-established Apartheid Committee of the 
General Assembly might be set the task of planning a strategy for sanctions, 
as though the political agreement had been reached. This exploratory work 
might even contribute to reaching a political decision later. Meanwhile 
this work can be set in motion by the General Assembly: it does not 
require the approval of the Security Council. 
Atlantic Agreement 

The British and the United States governments might well be able to 
agree to give their support to a U.N.-sponsored study of this kind. It would 
commit them to the principle that concerted international intervention in 
South Africa through the U.N. is the only humane and realistic way to 
avoid a tragic and drawn-out bloodbath and an international dogfight over 
the corpse. It would not necessarily commit them to accepting the results 
of the study, if the technical difficulties should seem insuperable. It would 
provide the possibility of a constructive alternative to unilateral or unco-
ordinated sanctions which would do serious damage to the economies of 
South Africa's chief trading partners. It would pr.ovide the opportunity for 
active participation in the study itself. 

Two questions remain to be answered. What are the chances of getting 
British and American support for a blockade? And what might one expect 
if it were finally achieved? With more than two-thirds of the U.N. already 
committed to action of some kind, it will become increa·singly difficult 
for the Western countries to continue to avoid commitment. The time 
will come, within the next year or two, when the pressure of forces inside 
the Republic and the United Nat,ions make it impossible for any country 
to avoid taking a stand. The Soviet bloc is certain to back the Afro-Asians 
in their demands for action. If positive action seemed likely to emanate 
from such a coalition of forces iot is most un1ikely that the United States, 
at least, would continue to remain aloof. And once she decided to act, others, 
including Britain, would find it impossible to remain neutral, regardless 
of their own wishes. It is important to understand the dynamic of present 
international forces, and to realise that a static approach to South Af'l'ica 
offers no guide to future policy. 

A determined blockade could be expected to achieve two immediate 
results. It would raise the morale and increase the effectiveness of the 
opponents of apartheid inside the Republic; and it would administer the 
traumatic shock necessary to provoke white South Af'!'icans into reconsidering 
the realities of their position. In such a situation, white leaders 
can be expected to emerge who would be wiUing to participate in a representa<
tive conference to discuss a democratic constitution foc the Republic. 
Such a conference has often been asked for by African leaders and by the 
whi·te opponents of apartheid. It could provide the conditions for agreement 
to allow for the development of a non~racial society resting on guarantees 
to protect the rights of all citizens regardless of their colour. Under these 
circumstances, the transition from a racial autocracy to a non~racia,J democracy 
could be achieved with justice to all the races, and so rescue white 


THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 

South Africa from the blinkers of its past. But such a solution is not 
conceivable unless the power of the Verwoerd regime :is broken by concerted 
international action. Outside intervention can diminish the tragic consequences 
of a race war. It can minimize the ·threat to international peace 
arising from the introduction of cold war forces in South Africa. And 
it can prevent the Republic's basically str·ong economy being destroyed. 

For Britain the only real issue is whether she will try to help the 
interna·tional community to achieve these purposes or whether, as in the 
Congo, she will act to thwart international action. In South Africa the 
stakes for everybody concerned are much higher than they ever were in 
the Congo. Dr. Verwoerd cannot be deflected; he can only be defeated. 
Will Britain be counted among those who helped to defeat him? 


MEMBERSHIP 
of the Fabian Society 


is open to all who are eligible for individual 
membership of the Labour Party. Other radicals 
and reformers sympathetic towards the aims of 
the Society may become Associates. Please write 
for further particulars to the General Secretary, 
11 Dartmouth Street, London, S.W.l 
(WHitehall 3077) 



Recent Fabian Publications 


Research Pamphlets 

225 THE FARMER AND EUROPE 
3I6 

Lord Walston 
226 A PLAN FOR RoAD SAFETY 216 
Barbara Preston 
227 UNITED NATIONS ON TRIAL 216 
David Ennals 
228 EDUCATION FOR CoMMONWEALTH STUDENTS IN BRITAIN 216 
Patrick Lancaster 
229 NEw TowNs FOR OLD: the Pro•blem of Urban Renewal 41


J. B. Cullingworth 
230 CoMMONWEALTH AND CoMMoN MARKET: 31.
the Economic Implications. Tom Soper 
231 THE INGLEBY REPORT: THREE CRITICAL EssAYS 216 
David Donnison, Peggy Jay, Mary Stewart 
232 Too MANY PEOPLE? 31


A. Carter 
233 WORKERS' CoNTROL IN YUGOSLAVIA 3I-
Frederick Singleton and Anthony Topham 
234 TAXES FOR A PROSPEROUS SOCIETY 31Bruce 
Millan 
235 
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: SWEDEN SHOWS THE WAY 31Jack 
Cooper 

Tract. 

334 THE STRUCTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION 216 
A Fabian Group 
335 TRADE UNIONS IN OPPOSITION 316 
Ken Alexander a:td John Hughes 
336 NOT WITH EUROPE: the political case for staying out 3I6 
William Pickles 
337 THE ExiSTING ALTERNATIVES IN COMMUNICATIONS 116 
Raymond Williams 
338 THE PRESS AND THE PUBLIC 116 
John Beavan 
339 THE FUTURE OF THE UNIONS 3I6 
Wi!Harn McCarthy 
340 REDUNDANCY IN THE AFFLUENT SociETY 3I6 
Geoffrey Goodman 
341 THE COMMON MARKET DEBATE 1I6 
Douglas Jay, Roy Jenkins 
3'42 EDUCATION IN A CLASS SOCIETY: 
The Queen and Her Horses Reign 21John 
Vaizey 
343 OUT OF STAGNATION: A POLICY FOR GROWTH 416 

J. R. Sargent 
344 
THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC OWNERSHIP 31A 
Fabian Group 

ct6 Davld Ne/1 & Company • Printers • Dorking Surrey