Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
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L ur-rerzt Irencis in the I'rodz~ctzon oJSo~th Afr~ctzn I-Iistory<br />
The significance of revisionism lay in importing ideas of class into aca<br />
'n Legassick and Gczry Minkley<br />
the movement of resistance over the ar~alysis of South Africa undoubtedly<br />
ced revisionists.<br />
In parallel with revisionism in the academic arena went class analysis in the<br />
on movement. Joe Slovo's 'South Africa-No Middle Road', published in<br />
Since race discrimination is ... thc modzis opernndi of South Afi-ican<br />
capitalism, the struggle to destroy 'white supremacy' is ultimately houtld up<br />
with the very destruction of capitalism itself ... it is just as impossible to<br />
conceive of workers in SA separated from national liberation, as it is to<br />
conceive of true national liberation separated from the destruction of<br />
capitalism (inDavidsonetal1976: 1 18.1 6 1l8.<br />
To undcrstaud South Africa wc mus( appreciate the fact and fix it tirmly in<br />
our minds that hcre we are dealing with a class society. In Soutli /\i;.icn ilic<br />
capitalists. the bourgeoisie are tho domirrant class. Thcreihrc the stiiie.<br />
other fornls of social organisation and oflicial ideas are conditioned bq, this<br />
one fact of the supremacy ol'the bourgeoisie .... 7'1ie condition of tile black<br />
workers in Soutli Africa, tho place in society allocated tons hy :ire capitalist<br />
class, demands tliat we nlust assert our right to revolution .... ConsiJcr tlic<br />
circun~sixnc~es in wi\ich\ve might position black capit;llisnl as the antitliesis<br />
to white capitalism ... black capitalism instead of being tl~c antilliesis is<br />
rall~er contil-ination ofparasilism with no recteeniing Seaturcs ~vliatsoevcr.<br />
without any extenuating circumstances to cxcusc its exiilence jblhcki<br />
liberntiorz and democracy by taking state power and establishing a worker's democracy-<br />
achieving the same ends as articulated by nationalism. but by class nzeans. After all. as Lenin Revisionism became divided into 'structuralist' and 'social history'<br />
wrote. 'To throw off oppression is the imperative duty of the proletariat as adernocratic force, and<br />
is cerlainly in the interests of the proletarian class struggle. which is obscured and retarded by<br />
bickering on the national question. Rut to go beyond these strictly limited and historical limits in<br />
helping bourgeois nationalism means betraying the proletariat and siding with the bourgeoisie'<br />
Si~nons 1983:413).<br />
100 101