South Africa's historic first democratic elections are just around the corner. In the last few weeks before this long-awaited event, the mass democratic movement has scored some significant gains: the overthrow of Bophuthatswana dictator Lucas Mangope and the extension of free political activity to that bantustan; the marginalisation of the white far right and the fragmentation of the "Freedom Alliance"; the forced resignation of Ciskei bantustan supremo Oupo Gqozo; successful mass action by prisoners to win the right to vote; the exposure of the involvement of the highest levels of the South African Police in the notorious Third Force; mass action by the African National Congress to win free political activity in KwaZulu/Natal, contributing to the government and Transitional Executive Council's decision to finally take action against Inkatha leader Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi's refusal to allow free and fair elections in that region.
Green Left Weekly's Johannesburg correspondent, NORM DIXON, spoke to JEREMY CRONIN, a South African Communist Party (SACP) central committee member and editor of the African Communist, about South Africa's transition to democracy.
In Braamfontein, just across the railway line from Johannesburg's bustling centre, is the 10-storey building that once housed the head offices of the multinational chemical giant, ICI. Today, the South African Communist Party shares the building with the trade union movement, COSATU. Symbolic perhaps of the pace of the political struggle and the rapid growth of the democratic movement since 1990, the activists at COSATU House — as 1 Leyds Street is now called — have yet to find time to replace the huge ICI corporate logos on the roof, which are visible throughout the city.
Sitting in his modest third-floor office, trying to make himself heard over the din of Johannesburg's morning traffic and the ever-present wail of sirens that characterise this chaotic city, Jeremy Cronin told Green Left Weekly that the popular uprising in Bophuthatswana captured many of the features, both positive and paradoxical, of South Africa's transition to democracy.
"We've often said abstractly that the transition should be a mass-driven process, and the political formations within the ANC alliance have not always necessarily understood quite what that meant. We've tried to make it a mass-driven process and not always succeeded. But partly spontaneously, and sometimes in a planned way, at all the critical moments the masses have stepped in."
The overthrow of Lucas Mangope was one of several popular interventions that have kept the process on track, Cronin explained. The democratic movement "didn't find its feet strategically" in the first years after its unbanning. "Against the background of the regime's broader strategic defeat, but within the context of trying to guide and have the strategic initiative within the transition, they were doing better than we were in the first couple of years.
"A critical turning point came in July of 1992. The CODESA [Convention for a Democratic South Africa] negotiations had broken down and were deadlocked. We unleashed rolling waves of mass action countrywide in support of our basic negotiating demands and connecting with localised issues as well. There were huge marches in July and early August of 1992.
"We re-won the strategic initiative in the negotiations process, and we compelled the regime to sign the Record of Understanding with the ANC. They released political prisoners, which they were supposed to have done already, they agreed to the outlawing of carrying of dangerous weapons in public, and greater control over hostels. Much of that hasn't actually happened, but they agreed to do it. That they did was a consequence of big marches culminating in the march of over 100,000 on the Union Buildings in Pretoria on August 5, 1992.
"That Record of Understanding, signed in September 1992, broke the regime's alliance with Inkatha, which then moved off into the Freedom Alliance. The process became much more a bilateral one driven by the ANC. The National Party couldn't move without consulting with the ANC."
Despite this, the National Party continued to slow the process. A hardline element within the cabinet wanted to renew the alliance with Inkatha and escalate the state-sponsored "Third Force" operations against the liberation movements.
The hugely popular Chris Hani, general secretary of the SACP, was assassinated in April 1993. "The tragedy of the Hani assassination brought the masses out again. At the time of the Hani assassination there was no fixed date for the elections. The regime was still jiving ...
"Within weeks of the assassination, we had agreed to elections within a year. This election was the direct consequence of the assassination, the national crisis it caused and the huge response of South Africa's people — the largest stay-aways we'd ever seen, with 4 million workers protesting for two days."
Cronin said that since April 1993, a very broad national consensus has been established for the April 26-28 election for the constituent assembly. "This includes the big imperialist powers. The response to the Hani assassination showed them that too much clever manoeuvring could actually undermine the whole process ... We're now dealing with 85% of South Africans accepting, more or less happily, the necessity of democratic elections in April."
The 15% who remain opposed formed themselves into the Freedom Alliance, Cronin explained. "A lot of our energies have been devoted to trying to split that alliance. And, surprisingly, it's working almost to plan.
"That alliance was originally the three non-ANC aligned bantustan administrations — KwaZulu/Inkatha, Ciskei and Bophuthatswana — plus the Conservative Party and a whole range of fascist, neo-Nazi, white right-wing parties and organisations like the Transvaal Agricultural Union. It is an anti-ANC, anti-democratisation alliance with very little else in common."
The nature of this "alliance" presented opportunities for driving a wedge between the different groups within it and even creating splits within groups.
While it is small, Cronin added, this right wing should not be underestimated. The white right is well armed, well trained and experienced in fighting wars in Angola and other parts of southern Africa. It has presence inside the police and defence force. It has heavily infiltrated the SADF's rural-based reserves, known as commandos. The second most dangerous component, Cronin said, is clearly Inkatha, which has more of a mass base than Mangope in Bophuthatswana or Gqozo in Ciskei had.
The liberation movement's strategy to defuse this right-wing threat has been diverse. "Our strategy has been, particularly with the white right, to try to draw as many as possible into the process of elections to prevent a full-scale counter-revolution. To do what the regime was trying to do to us in the negotiations: take the leadership and lock them up in prolonged negotiations, particularly with the white right wing.
"So we've said a volkstaat is physically, morally and politically unacceptable, but let's talk about it. You tell us where it's going to be, draw us maps. We've taken them on trips to Belgium, Switzerland.
"That's worked quite well. We have detached some of the core leadership, Constand Viljoen in particular and sections of the Conservative Party, from the goal of an anti-constitutional insurrection. They have come into the process to fight for a volkstaat rather than with arms in hand."
Cronin doubts that the white right can sustain a long struggle. Some people have pointed to the Irish republican movement's ability to maintain a struggle for many years. "The IRA's is a much more legitimate struggle, and unification is also a feasible demand in Ireland. There is no way you can draw a map of a white volkstaat. They've tried and it looks like a fishing line with knots because there are no areas in South Africa that have a white majority, except maybe a rugby ground on a Saturday afternoon."
But the freedom movement also understands that many "ordinary white Afrikaans-speaking workers and middle strata are very scared. They are victims in their heads of apartheid. We are calculating that six months to two years after the election — when there is a black president, a black majority government and the sky hasn't fallen in — those terrible irrational racial fears will lessen and the recruiting base of the extremists with diminish significantly."
There are also deep contradictions between the black right wing and their neo-Nazi allies, Cronin said. "An ordinary Inkatha member in a hostel, who is a worker, can't feel very comfortable about being in a political alliance with the AWB. The AWB for him or her is a white foreman kicking them in the backside." Those contradictions were obvious in Bophuthatswana, where it was one of Mangope's own police officers who executed AWB members.
The weakest of the black right were the Ciskei and Bophuthatswana regimes. In Ciskei the mass organisations were strongest and Gqozo's legitimacy was zero. Under pressure from mounting mass struggles, and threatened with an army revolt, the Ciskei dictator dropped out of the Freedom Alliance.
In Bophuthatswana, Cronin said, the ANC met many times with Mangope to convince him to come into the process, but "he was just too damn stupid to take the gap we were offering him ... The masses swatted him out of the way."
The overthrow of Mangope severely damaged the white right as well, Cronin added."The strategy of that white right wing has been to have rural uprisings, take control of white towns ... Bophuthatswana was important in that respect because it is adjacent to their strongholds in the western Transvaal ...
"The white right wing's morale has been massively dented. The AWB is bruised and looks stupid. The executions, which were obviously not humane acts, were symbolic for ordinary people.
"It was like the guillotining of the king in France. A black policeman had executed these extreme white right-wingers; it was a dethroning. It had a popular psychological impact of enormous importance. Even a lot of ordinary whites hated these guys; they see these thugs as an embarrassment to the country. They secretly said, 'Good'."
The fall of Mangope also highlighted some of the paradoxes and complexities of the transition to democracy, Cronin pointed out. "The SADF marched in to popular applause. The ANC alliance asked that they should go in to displace the AWB and Mangope and install a new administration ...
"The ANC is doing something that on paper is quite a dangerous thing. It is fighting elections, which it is going to win — if it wasn't going to win, it wouldn't be such a dangerous thing — without security cover. We are reliant on de Klerk's army and de Klerk's police force to preserve law and order in a quite fraught election campaign, and immediately after that election campaign.
"That has to do with our own weakness. Prior to 1990 we never built up a large armed force inside our country. We have something of an armed force, but it doesn't amount to much. It is not remotely what they bring into the process — although the army's lower ranks are black, the same with the police force: that adds a favourable dimension for us."
This military weakness has been countered by continued mobilisation of the mass movement and skilful political negotiations. "The right-wing strategy was to launch a rural uprising and force a situation where we would be forced to deploy that army. They would then say to the army, 'Are you going to shoot at us so Mandela can be president?'. They wanted to test the loyalty of the army.
"I'm confident that things will hold. It's only six weeks before the elections, and the right wing planned to launch this [revolt] much sooner. The right-wing danger won't disappear the day after elections either. There will be a bumpy period for some months at least."
Cronin added that the any far-right revolt is unlikely to get major external support. "They are not going to be bankrolled like a Pinochet. Big business is on the side of democratisation — only limited democratisation, of course. The elections and democratisation are being underwritten by a consensus that goes all the way from Washington through to at least the SACP head office and even a bit to the left of that. So there is not a lot of support for a right-wing revolution. There is a threat, but it is one I wouldn't exaggerate."