African Studies Institute - Seminar Papers

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Subject: search.filters.subject.South Africa. Politics and government. 1989-1994

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    State strategy and transition in South Africa: Historical and contemporary perspectives
    (1988-08-08) Sarakinsky, Ivor
    Much of the contemporary debate on the transition from an apartheid to an apartheid free South Africa has primarily focussed on the question of class alliances and the possibility of socialism. This literature has not, in any detail, discussed the nature of the apartheid state and the prior question of how a transition is to be brought about. The important debates concerning the role of the working class in alliance with other classes do not put any suggestions forward as to how the apartheid state is to be transformed. Recently, two positions on this question have emerged. First, John Saul (1986: 3-22) makes some interesting arguments concerning the relationship between the popular democratic and proletarian themes in the liberation struggle and the way they are reflected in the liberation movements. However, on the question of transition, Saul merely makes vague references to the 'overthrow of the apartheid state', the resistance movements 'forcing a transition to a democratic resolution of South Africa's crisis' and 'the smashing of the apartheid state1. All this is said in the context of his correct assertion that the 'brute capacity of the state to bottle up the challenge (to it)...has not been deeply threatened'. Second, and more recently, Roger Southall (1987: 345-374) discusses the possibility of socialism as well as other scenarios in a post-apartheid South Africa. His argument is premised on the unclear assumption that a transition has occurred 'not (by) the revolutionary overthrow of the state but (by) its erosion from below'. Later on, he asserts that much of the argument about the ongoing struggle concerns 'the strength of the white state, and the supposition that it cannot be overthrown, only eroded. The problem with both these positions, excluding their vagueness, is that they do not seriously consider the institutional structure of the South African state, its power and its tactical responses to the recent wave of popular militancy in South Africa. In other words, the mechanics of transition are not rigorously examined as these authors have focussed their discussions on other themes, and it is to this question, the question of transition and the state, that this paper is directed. However, before examining the contemporary line up of forces in the South African milieu, the way the liberation movements have historically viewed the state and the tactics that they have adopted to effect a transition will be discussed.
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    The tripartite alliance on the eve of a new millennium: The Congress of South African Trade Unions, the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party
    (1997-03-03) Eidelberg, P.G.
    This paper argues that the transition from Nationalist Party to African National Congress [ANC] rule, culminating in the elections of April 1994, has involved a realignment in the balance of power between the members of the Tripartite Alliance, comprising the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions [COSATU] and the South African Communist Party [SACP]. The ANC's gradual return to legal activity, pari passu with the steady erosion of Nationalist Party rule, during the decade prior to 1994, has led to the consolidation of ANC hegemony, reaching a climax since approximately 1992. It is suggested, however, that this has affected COSATU and the SACP each in a different manner. The paper is in two parts, with the dividing line roughly at the end of 1991. The first part begins in 1985, the year of COSATU's founding and the beginning of an evolving ideological divergence between the SACP and the ANC. It is argued that this divergence originated from the climate of unprecedented massive township and industrial unrest during 1984-1986 and from the resulting imposition of international sanctions. In the wake of these events, the SACP and the ANC began each to react in its own way. The SACP began to draw closer to COSATU, although not out of interest in a separate alliance, but rather primarily to canvass their membership. In the process, it began to espouse primarily a policy of urban insurrection, rather than that of guerrilla warfare, which both it and the ANC had hitherto endorsed... The second part begins with the eighth SACP congress, held in late 1991.