Zig Zags of opportunism
We have considered it necessary in the previous chapter to pause and deal in more detail with certain facets of the situation, the political deviations and their interplay. But now we return to the main stream of political activity during the middle forties. Picture once more the situation, with the war at an end and the Herrenvolk going full steam ahead with their plans in relation to the whole of the Non-Europeans, while on the other hand the political consciousness of the people is growing day by day. The political ferment is mounting to a climax, each new oppressive measure making clearer to them the extent of those plans and hardening their determination. The new ideas are taking root. Fed with the successes of the other oppressed in the far East, and encouraged by the growing unity amongst themselves, they are imbued with a new hope. The new spirit pervades every section and expresses itself throughout the country, now in a clash with the authorities at Mt. Ayliff or the Peddie District where the people are resisting the Rehabilitation Scheme, now in a revolt of the youth in church-controlled institutions of learning, or in small industrial strikes-all culminating in the African Miners Strike of August, 1946, which was drowned in blood.
The significant factor about this strike is that it was undertaken by men who are usually regarded as coming from the most backward section of the population. Drawn from the remote villages and almost entirely illiterate, they constitute a body of migrant labourers recruited under contract for the mines. They are herded in the mine compounds and barricaded from the influences of the town and industrial environment. Yet in spite of this they conducted a strike which shook the Herrenvolk out of their complacency. In consternation they saw the very heart of their economic structure being threatened. The heroism of the African miners in face of police batons, teargas bombs, rifles and machine guns, was a testimony of the temper and spirit of a whole people.
The repercussions of this event were felt far and wide. Every Black man was filled with a sense of anger and resentment at the fate of their brothers. In Johannesburg the African workers attempted to organise a general strike, which failed because they were disunited and were taken unawares. While the African miners were being shot, a few miles away in Pretoria the memÂbers of the Native Representative Council were holding their yearly deliberations, but they were not allowed even to discuss the calamity which had befallen those they were supposed to represent. Goaded by the general spirit, they realised that they had to do something, make some kind of gesture as the so-called representatives of their people. They staged the first act in the farcical drama that was to be played out in the ensuing period. They adjourned the session of the N.R.C. indefinitely.
"The Voice, "the organ of the All African Convention, in commenting on this act, said:
"The same despair and frustration of the people that has caused the mine-workers' strike, has brought about the bursting of the safetyÂvalve of the ruling-class-the Quisling Council. It would be a complete perversion of the truth to say that these 16 individuals, who have placed themselves in the service of the Government against the interests of their own people, have now suddenly discovered that the N.R.C. is a fraud. No, it was due to the wrath of the people. Driven to despair by the conditions that were created during these last ten years, with the connivance of the Council, the people made it impossible for them to go on with the fraud. And they themselves were forced to admit that they had become ridiculous in the eyes of the people. As P. R. Mosaka said: 'they were held in contempt in the country.'"
"The Voice "goes on:
"And yet even now, after admitting ' that the time has come for them "to recognise that the experiment has failed,' the members of the N.R.C. still refuse to draw the only possible conclusion, namely to resign. Instead they left the door open-they merely adjourned. "( "The Voice, "No. 11.)
There is no doubt that the people themselves were seeing through the fraud of the dummy institutions. The rulers were alarmed. How uneasy they were is evident from an editorial in one of their papers, the "Cape Times (17.10.46):
"The race problem to-day in this country is worse than it has ever been throughout our history. . . . Relations between European and Non-European were never nearer breaking-point."
The S.A. Institute of Race Relations, that watch-dog of the ruling-class, put out the red signal signifying danger. In a statement drawn up by its Executive it said:
"These are serious symptoms of mounting discontent among the Natives. The Bantu people are not only losing patience with the responsible authorities, but, what is worse, they are losing confidence in the good faith of Europeans."
They proceeded to give the following piece of advice:
"If we Europeans fail to make ample concessions to social justice while there is still time and temper to do so ... in South Africa the period is drawing to a close in which honourable compromise is possible, "
Then, true to their role as liberals, they went on to appeal to the "responsible "Non-European leadership "not to forsake the path of co-operation and to welcome every genuine gesture of goodwill."
Emergency Conference
There was no need for the Institute of Race Relations to make so eloquent an appeal to their protégés. The M.R.C.s themselves were deeply committed to a policy of collaboration with the oppressor. But they were on the horns of a dilemma. The people were demanding their resignation from the N.R.C. and an end of the farce of "representation. "All those organisations affiliated to the A.A.C. had pronounced judgment against it. How then were the M.R.C.s to find a way to re-open negotiations with the Government, continue to operate the dummy Council and yet still maintain an appearance of representing the people? Once more the African National Congress came to their rescue. They went to this body to provide them with a mandate to go back to the N.R.C. Dr. Xuma, President of the A.N.C., called an Emergency Conference to meet in Bloemfontein on the 6th and 7th October, 1946, at which the M.R.C.s occupied the position of honour. In the circular convening the conference Dr. Xuma had stated:
"The Council has taken the initiative to call public attention to the farcical position of the Native Representatives Council. "If one were not so familiar with the language of these people- schooled as they are in the ambiguities of the liberals-one might expect from this high praise that the M.R.C.s were resigning from the dummy council or contemplating doing so. But the upshot of the Emergency Conference was that they received their mandate to go back to the Council.
The same M.R.C.s who, on the 14th August had protested:
"We have been asked to operate a toy telephone, "six weeks later beg for a mandate to return and operate the toy. They who had solemnly declared:
"After ten years, since the great experiment of segregation was begun, we, the members of the Council, are able to say, unequivocally, that the experiÂment has been a dismal failure, "are now pleading to resume the "great experiment. "In truth, the councillors had called the attention to the "farcical position of the N.R.C.,"for what could have been more farcical than this volt face?
There is no doubt that to carry through their designs at the Emergency Conference required the utmost ingenuity. As an object lesson in the art of political deception we quote the resolution passed at this conference:
"(This Conference) :
(1) Endorses in full the action taken by the M.R.C.s.
(2) Calls upon all Councillors to attend a meeting convened for the 20th November, or any other meeting called for the purpose of hearing a reply of the Government to their demands;
(3) Declares the Native Representation Act of 1936 to be a fraud and a means to perpetuate the policy of segregation, oppression and humiliation;
(4) Calls upon the African people as a whole to boycott all elections under the Act and to struggle for full citizenship rights."
Here we see before us, standing to its full stature, a two-headed monster, a Janus, looking in two opposite directions at one and the same time. Its one face is turned in the direction of the Herrenvolk, the other towards the people. The contradictions in the Resolution are not the result of mere ignorance and confusion of thought. They are born of the desire to serve two masters, to pacify two irreconcilable forces. Parts one and two of the Resolution are a complete capitulation to the M.R.C.s and the Government. Those who had declared that "the Native Representation Act of 1936 is a fraud and a means to perpetuate the policy of segregation, oppression and humiliation,"are receiving a mandate to go back and perpetrate the fraud. This is an acceptance of inferiority and the idea of a child-race, and nothing could be more pleasing to the Herrenvolk, who regard the dummy councils as an essential part of the machinery of oppression. Parts three and four of the Resolution, on the other hand, are intended to play up to the sentiments of the people. The blatant contradiction in one and the same resolution, between the acceptance of inferiority and the claim to full equality is couched in such grandiloÂquent terms that it is not immediately evident to the people. But the sum total is an ignominious betrayal of their political aspiraÂtions.
Logic of Events
Events, however, have their own logic. This Resolution, facing in two opposite directions, gave rise to two diametrically opposed policies, both of which were followed by Congress. And this is what was responsible for the remarkable zigzags in political action in the ensuing period. The first part of the resolution led to collaboration with the oppressor, the line which the ConÂgress leadership had followed all along. The Emergency ConferÂence had been called to endorse this policy. But in order to attain this end they had been forced to give the appearance of falling in line with the desires of the people. Hence parts three and four of the Resolution, leading to non-collaboration. Thus we see two mutually exclusive policies being advocated by one and the same organisation.
The people themselves, not realising the significance of the first part of the resolution, attached importance only to the second part and regarded it as expressing the meaning of the whole. So great was the pressure of the masses that Congress was compelled to declare for the boycott. The very next month, November, 1946, the Cape Town Branch of the A.N.C. called a meeting of organisations and passed a resolution, from which we quote the followÂing clauses:
1. "This Conference of African Organisations of the Western Province here assembled:
(a) Endorses the decision of the Bloemfontein Emergency Conference, but in view of the changed situation calls upon the members of the N.R.C. to resign forthwith and cease collaboration with the GovernÂment under the Representation of Natives Act of 1936.
(b) Declares the Native Representation Act of 1936 to be a fraud and a means to perpetuate the policy of segregation, oppression and humiliation.
(c) Calls upon the African people as a whole to boycott all elections under the Act and to struggle for full citizenship rights.
2. (a) Conference hereby resolves to set up a Committee to campaign for the boycott of elections under the Representation of Natives Act of 1936. "
These were bold words, but before very long they were to swallow every one of these words with a shamelessness typical of hardened collaborators.
One month later, December 1946, the annual conference of the African National Congress, also declared for the boycott.
It was then that the leadership, caught in the logic of their own political trick, took alarm and set about trying to undo the effects of their resolution. On July, 1947, at a meeting of the Cape African National Congress, the President, Rev. J. Calata (who was also the General Secretary of the A.N.C.), said in his presidential address:
"I believe that it is extremely important that this resolution to boycott the next elections should be reconsidered and that a special conference of the National Congress should be called as early as possible for this purpose. "
Then he let the cat out of the bag when he went on to say:
"I happen to know that the President General is contemplating something on the same lines and may welcome a resolution to strengthen his hands."
This announcement must have come as a shock to the people and made them wonder what their leaders were doing behind their backs.
The same issue of the Inkundla (July, 1947) which carried a report of Rev. Calata's speech, carried also the injunctions of the President General, Dr. Xuma, in an article headed: "Intensify Boycott Campaign."In this he explained:
"To many people the boycott of the elections under the 1936 Acts seems meaningless and unwise. It is because most people do not realise that the 1936 Acts completed not only the disenfranchisement of the African but also affected adversely his right of free access to land, his economic, social and educational benefits. . . . The boycott resolution therefore was a demand for common citizenship. "
Here, in the two statements by the heads of Congress, the Janus-head of the August Resolution has found its fullest expression. The contradictions are almost absurdly complete;and both are expressing Congress policy.
The truth of the matter is that the demand for the boycott came spontaneously and unambiguously from the people, in spite of and against the reactionary leaders. The Congress diehards were aware of this. They also knew that the people would leave any organisation which went against the boycott. That is why they agreed to disagree on the question. The Calata wing of Congress could go on assuring their masters, the herrenvolk, that they had no intention of deserting them, while the Xuma wing could canvas the support of the masses under the pretence that Congress, too, was for the boycott and non-collaboration with the oppressor.
At this period all and sundry were forced to advocate the boycott. The Communist Party, too, fell into line. True to their tactic, they shouted the loudest of all to demonstrate their zeal for the people's cause. In fact they so outdid themselves in their zeal that it was subsequently to prove embarrassing when the time arrived for one of their all-too-frequent about-turns. It was at this time that the C.P. issued a statement: "The Boycott of ElecÂtions under the 'Representation of Natives Act, 1936,' "under the signature of its General Secretary, Mr. Moses M. Kotane, who was also an important leader of the African National Congress. Let us hear the "Moses":-
"When at the Emergency Conference of Africans, on October 7, 1946, the delegates by 495 votes to 16 decided to boycott all elections under the RepÂresentation of "Natives Act of 1936, they took one of the most important decisions in the struggle for democracy in South Africa. The importance of the boycott decision lies in the fact that it is a practical effort to remove the veil behind which the political enslavement, economic strangulation and social degradation of the African people are perpetrated and perpetuated. the 'Native Representatives' and many of the so-called friends of the Natives, The decision has riled and infuriated the ruling class and its press, shown up and has embarrassed some of the African leaders. "( "Freedom,"Sept.-Oct., 1947.)
The statement continues:
"The Communist Party National Conference in January this year endorsed the decision of the Bloemfontein Conference to boycott completely the farÂcical representations granted under the Representation of Natives Act, and expressed 'the readiness of the Communist Party to participate in any active campaign to make this decision effective.' "(Ibid.)
In a fury of castigation against those who oppose the boycott, it goes on:
"Arguments against the boycott come from two sources: (a) those to whom representation of 'Natives' has become a paying proposition-£1,000 a year, free travelling pass, plus the honour which accompanies the letters M.P. "(Ibid.)
And waxing more and more eloquent:
"If we are dominated by fear of stooges and reactionaries, and if we are to allow our actions to be conditioned by the attitudes of such persons, then it means that we can never agree to Africans embarking on a boycott. . . . The best way to deal with 'representatives' who get into Parliament against the views and interests of the people they claim to represent is to repudiate them publicly. "(Ibid.)
Again:
"We are aware of the fact that the system is designed to safeguard and ensure white domination in this country. ... If therefore we are agreed that the system of representation is bad and ineffective, why should we be afraid of people who will take advantage of the loopholes in the law to get into Parliament? Those European 'friends of the Africans' who, while they themselves enjoy full democracy and citizenship rights, are opposed to the boycott and are consequently against the Africans ridding themselves of something deceptive and achieving for themselves the full franchise which these Europeans enjoy, cannot escape from being looked upon by the Africans as representatives of white supremacy. "(Ibid.)
It was not long before the Communist Party, too, was to make a desperate attempt to swallow these heroic words, which stubbornly stuck in their throats. .Even at the moment when they were taking a decision to boycott the elections, Mr. Sam Kahn, a leading member of the C.P., was preparing to launch his candidature as "Native Representative. "He was associating himself on the political platform with the same Advocate Buchanan, M.P., whom the C.P. was castigating as having "flouted the decision of the Transkei African Voters "and therefore must be "looked upon by the Africans as a representative, of white supremacy."The pattern of contradiction here, too, is clear. Within the C.P. itself are two currents running in opposite directions. The one wing- what may be called the Kotane wing-living closer to the people and carried along by the force of their demands, is pushed in the direction of non-collaboration, while the other, the dominant wing in the C.P., represented by the White intellectuals whose roots are in the Herrenvolk class, were being impelled towards the policy of collaboration and were already making openings for a retreat.
Sounding the retreat
It was in November, 1946, that the M.R.C.s had returned to the Council with the full backing of the Emergency Conference Resolution. There they had pleaded to be reinstated, provided that a face-saving formula could be devised, as the following resoÂlution reveals:
"Since its inception, this Council has loyally co-operated with the GovernÂment, and would, continue to do so as long as it is not expected either expressly or by implication, to sacrifice in the process the legitimate rights and interests of the African people. "(Natal Mercury, 5.1.49, in report of speech by Dr. W. J. G. Mears, Sec. Native Affairs, to the N.R.C. summarising events since 1946.)
The hollow sham of the self-righteous reservation implied in the latter part of the resolution could not deceive anybody. "Loyally to co-operate with the Government"was, ipso facto, to betray the interests of their people. In the face of the past and present record of legislative measures against the Africans, in face, too, of the recent evidence of the tightening of the screw and the ruthless suppression of the African Miners' Strike, this resolution lends itself to only one interpretation-the collaborators are pleading not to be too obviously exposed in the eyes of the people. What a pregnant phrase is this: "as long as it (the Council) is not expected ... to sacrifice . . . the legitimate rights and interests of the African people."Who expected them? It would seem from this that when the Council accepted office they had regarded themselves as "expected,"to sacrifice the rights of the people- as part of their duty.
In the same resolution the Councillors continued:
"In the circumstances, this Council feels compelled to adjourn the session in order to make it possible for the Councillors to make fully known to the African people the nature and contents of the Acting Prime Minister's statement. "
(Be it recorded here that the Acting Prime Minister's stateÂment was to the effect that the Government was not prepared "forthwith to abolish all discriminatory legislation affecting Non-Europeans in this country"-as the Council had requested in August, 1946.)
It was this self-evident, almost platitudinous fact, if you please, that the Councillors solemnly proposed to lay "fully"before the people. The M.R.C.s had apparently made a sudden and momentous discovery-that the Government would not "forthÂwith"grant the Africans full democratic rights!
What is significant in this resolution is the drop from the almost challenging tone of the August days. Under the excitation of the mine workers' strike they had been so carried away that they actually allowed themselves to stand upright and make demands-and for full equality at that. But within three months, as if afraid of the spectacle of their own temerity, they hastened to climb down and assume their more familiar and wonted posture. It is now no longer a question of adjourning until such time as the Government shall "forthwith abolish all discriminatory legislation";they are asking for an adjournment merely "to make it possible for the Councillors to make fully known"-what the masses knew long before Hofmeyr even expressed it.
All this strangely erratic behaviour, now demanding "forthÂwith"-as if the Government would present them with freedom on a platter-and now meekly appealing for co-operation, is not just a demonstration of political naivete. It signified an attempt to cover up their tracks and pave the way for a retreat. The M.R.C.s had been the first to sound the retreat and from every quarter the intellectuals in the African National Congress and the Communist Party were to follow suit, not immediately, but at various times as the occasion offered.
July, 1947, had found Rev. Calata clamouring that the boycott resolution should be reconsidered and a special conference of the African National Congress should be called for this purÂpose. (In the same month-it will be remembered-that Dr. Xuma was "intensifying the campaign.") The very next month came an announcement from Mr. Paul Mosaka, M.R.C., as follows:
"The leaders of the National Congress have not indicated how this (boycott) resolution of Conference is to be implemented. Meanwhile, Dr. Xuma has openly declared his opposition to the boycott. Professor Matthews, Councillors Champion and Thema and Mr. R. Baloyi, prominent members of the National Executive of Congress, are not supporting the boycott resoluÂtion and attempts are being made to call a special Conference in order to rescind or reverse this Resolution."(Umteteli: 16.8.47.)
In November came a direct injunction from the M.R.C.s against the boycott, couched in the familiar evasive circumlocutions:
"Having regard to the present circumstances among the African people, the Councillors are not prepared at this stage to advise them to refrain from voting."
The following month, December, 1947, was a month of great activity. All the important African organisations held their Conferences. It was the eve of the dummy elections of so-called Native Representatives and all the organisations took up their positions on the burning issue of the boycott, ranging themselves unmistakably according to their acceptance or rejection of inferiority and trusteeship. All those organisations affiliated to the All African Convention once more declared for non-collaboration with the oppressor and therefore for the boycott of the elections. The Cape African Voters' Association issued a call to all voters to boycott. The African National Congress on the other hand reÂversed its previous resolution, decided to break the boycott and thus declared for collaboration with the oppressor. Needless to say, they found a formula which attempted to disguise their true intent. That is when they invented the notorious meaningless slogan: 'Return the Boycott Candidates.' The C.P. followed suit in reversing the boycott decision.
In January, 1948, Rev. Calata, Secretary General of Congress, accompanied by Prof. Z. K. Matthews, M.R.C. and Executive member of Congress, go down to Port Elizabeth to report the "good news"of the Congress about-turn. Now the battle breaks out into the open between the protagonists of the two policies. The campaign for the boycott is intensified and hundreds of meetÂings are held all over the country. The organisations in the Convention go to the people and around the question of the boycott pose the larger issue, the position of the Black man in all its vastness-whether he shall accept inferiority and helotry or claim equality and full democratic rights. The people rally to the ConÂvention policy and in March the Transkei Organised Bodies expel from their organisations the M.R.C.s and all candidates to the N.R.C. In definance of their decisions, however, White candidates offer themselves for election. The Herrenvolk, realising the larger nature of their issues involved, sink their party differences and support them. The White candidates hold meetings, but the followers of Convention seize the opportunity to expose them as representatives of the Herrenvolk seeking to perpetuate White domination. On the other hand the Congress and the Communist Party support the White candidates.
When the elections finally took place nearly 50 per cent of the voters did not go to the polls-a remarkable achievement considering that the idea of the boycott was new and involved a complete break with the mental attitude of the past, the slave mentality instilled into them for generations;considering, also, how the press had been organised against the boycott: the herrenvolk press, the C.P. press and the so-called Bantu press all going full blast against it. And added to all this had been the African National Congress operating from within, i.e. amongst the people.
The curious phenomenon' calling for comment at this period is the brazenness with which the Communist Party and the African National Congress made a political turn-about in the space of a few months and still had the effrontery to expect the people to put their trust in them. The C.P., which had so severely censured as "representatives of white supremacy"all those "European 'friends of the African' who, while they themselves enjoy full democracy and citizenship rights, are opposed to the boycott, "was now putting up its White members as candidates. Gone was the accusation that "representation of 'Natives' has become a paying proposition-.£1,000 a year, free travelling pass, plus the honour which accompanies the letters M.P. "
These arch political tongue twisters now turned their vituperÂation against the boycott, dubbing it as "a negative and defeatist tactic. ""At the moment, for instance, "they write, "a policy of 'non-co-operation' or boycott is being urged as the only 'salvation' possible for the Non-European peoples. "( "Freedom, "C.P. organ.) This deliberate distortion, calculated to discredit the movement, was dictated by the necessity to justify their own betrayal. And the greater the need to cover up their tracks, the greater was the lie. It can be said that at no time did the Non-Europeans regard the boycott as an end in itself to be treated in isolation. It was always regarded as a means to an end, as part of the general struggle.
And the very essence of the boycott was its break with the slavish attitude of the past, which accepted inferiority;a turning from the role of passivity to positive action- the road of struggle. Only a few months before the C.P. had hailed the boycott as "one of the most important decisions in the struggle for democracy in South Africa", and had lauded it as "a practical effort to remove the veil behind which the political enslavement, ' economic strangulation and social degradation of the African people are perpetrated and perpetuated. "But now that the logic of their own opportunistic policy placed them in the position of having to defend precisely those institutions which veil the enslavement, strangulation and degradation of the Black man, they turn a somersault and say:
"The essence of the (boycott) campaign is that the Non-Europeans should turn their backs on political struggle, isolate themselves from the Europeans, and, in short, accept segregation. "(Ibid.)
What monstrous falsification is this? They who, by breakÂing the boycott, are in the very process of stabbing the political struggle in the back, the struggle against segregation, they who are working the institutions of segregation and tying the people to them, shamelessly accuse the protagonists of the boycott of accepting segregation. They even have the brazen impudence to pose as the defenders of the Black man. And from one lie they are forced to commit another, for they continue:
"An obvious, organic weakness in the boycott tactic is that the ruling class itself wants to abolish the institutions concerned, the N.R.C., the Advisory Boards, the African Parliamentary franchise."(Ibid.)
Everyone outside the C.P. and the Congress fold knows that, far from abolishing these institutions, the Malan Government wants to strengthen and extend them to a degree and with a thoroughness hitherto unaccomplished.
The flood of vituperation against the boycott was not limited to the C.P. The various Congress scribes vied with one another in their attacks against it. With a desperate ingenuity they thought up all sorts of arguments in defence of the dummy institutions while at the same time presenting themselves as champions of the people's cause. For this purpose the Herrenvolk opened the columns of their press to them, apparently reckoning that "Inkundla yaBantu"covered too small a field. From the columns of the big dailies to the magazines, from church publications to the smallest local news-sheets, attacks on the boycott were churned out for consumption by the intellectuals.
Mr. J. K. Ngubane, editor of Inkundla, in a pamphlet pubÂlished by "The African Bookman"entitled: "Should the Native Representative Council be abolished ? ", wrote:
"Those who clamour for the Unconditional abolition of the Council fail to realise that it is still a very useful lever to facilitate the organisation of the African people against discrimination." And again: "So far, the Council has been a fairly good school of political training;now it must be turned into a training centre for Africans in the art of administration."
What frivolity! Rhodes himself could not have better deÂfended his plan of introducing such institutions to occupy the minds of the "child-race."
Elsewhere, in an article in "Umthunywa"(13.12,47) entitled:
"Should we boycott the coming elections?"he assumed the mantle of castigator. In as eloquent a "piece of nonsensical verbiage as one would meet with in a month of journalism-beÂgotten under the influence of herrenvolk propaganda, he wrote:
"Merely to boycott elections is to be unreliable, unrealistic and unstatesmanlike. "
This pocket edition of a statesman, without knowing it, falls into the language of his masters. He goes so far as to describe the boycott as a fascist weapon with which the people must not soil their hands. How familiar is this method used by so-called statesmen who deliberately evoke, by the mere use of words, a blind emotion against something they fear. Making use of the people's intense hatred of fascism, they do not scruple to turn that hatred against the very struggles of the oppressed. And to-day they do not scruple to equate fascism with communism;they fling out words such as "communist agitators"to excite feeling against all oppressed peoples striving for liberation. Every Black man who dares to raise his voice is labelled a "red, "an "agitator."The African mine workers' strike is viciously supÂpressed, in the name of "communist activity", so-called "Native riots "in Johannesburg excite positive hysteria under the bogey of communism;the people's resistance to the Rehabilitation Scheme in the remotest parts of the country is in some weird and mysterious way connected up with Moscow. So Mr. Ngubane was not original when he dubbed the boycott, the people's weapon of struggle, as fascist..
By a curious contortion of his thought processes he even contrives to present himself and his kind as the champion of "National Unity. "He writes: "We should not overthrow national unity for the emotional satisfaction of boycotting elections. "Leaving aside his emotional satisfactions, what is of interest here is the self-same tactic we have observed the Communist Party employing. Those who are responsible for breaking the boycott and sowing confusion and disunity have the effrontery to pose as the defenders of unity. Since the beginning of the boycott movement the people had been uniting with a single purpose, expressing a single desire-to fight against the common enemy, oppression. But in the name of "national unity "these agents of the herrenvolk threw wide open the door of disunity. For all the petty, fratricidal squabbles associated with these mock elections to a dummy council were being resuscitated. In this, the Congress with its M.R.C.s did a great service to the ruling class.
Let us pause again to see what was Involved in this period.
In the political crisis the issues were posed in a clear-cut form. All organisations were compelled to take up their real position and reveal their true colours. There was no room for fence-sitters. The people had an exceptional opportunity to rally together on the boycott issue, demonstrate their solidarity and present a single front against oppression and all the agents of oppression. They had an unprecedented opportunity of showing up the White candidates for what they were-representatives of white domination-stripping them of the last remaining fig leaf and leaving them exposed for all to see. But it was Congress which saved them from this ignominious exposure. It was Congress that shielded the liberals and saved them from being rooted out once and for all.
There is another side to the picture, however. In the sharpened political situation Congress could no longer disguise its true role. It itself had been exposed. Its behaviour had the effect of delaying unified action on the part of the people, but did not and could not disrupt the continuing process of unification. In fact its opposition actually contributed to the strengthening of the political position of the All African Convention. In the fight the protagonists of the boycott had had an opportunity of both clarifying the new ideas and steeling themselves on the anvil of experience. It can be said that the Convention emerged stronger from the fight, both politically and organisationally. The Cape African Teachers' Association, the biggest single unit of the vocal section, threw in its lot with the new ideas and affiliated to Convention. Since then a number of local bodies of the people have also affiliated and are carrying on the struggle in their respective fields on the principled basis of the 10-Point Programme.