The crisis of Apartheid in the 1980s: An introduction
August 1985. A UDF march on Polsmoor prison to demand the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners. Police attacked the protesting youths early in the morning on the day of the march. Photograph by Gideon Mendel, scanned from "Beyond the Barricades" ©
By the 1980s, the Apartheid state was in crisis and the Apartheid system had become dysfunctional. One commentator summed it up as ‘the steam has gone out of the South African economic growth machine.’
Not only was the government suffering from an economic crisis, it was becoming increasingly unable to repress intensifying popular political resistance, while pressure mounted externally to dismantle apartheid.
The South African state's response to the political and economic crisis was called ‘total strategy’ by the P.W. Botha regime. ‘Total strategy’ was a two pronged policy of reform and repression. On the one hand, political reforms were introduced– the most important of which was the Tricameral Parliament and the election of Black Local Authorities. On the other hand, security laws were tightened, and police and military repression intensified against all who wanted meaningful change.