(en) Tokologo African Anarchist Collective - Tokologo #4 - Our History of Struggle: the 1980s ?Workerist-Populist? Debate Revisited by WARREN MCGREGOR (TAAC, ZACF)

Workshop contributors: Lucky, Pitso, Bongani, Siyabulela, Nonzukiso, Nonzwakazi, Mzwandile 
---- EDITOR?S INTRODUCTION: Today the terms ?populism? and ?workerism? are widely thrown 
about in South African political circles. Often, these terms and others (?syndicalism,? 
?ultra-left,? ?counter-revolutionary,? ?anti-majoritarian? ?) have no meaning: they are 
just labels used to silence critics. SA Communist Party (SACP) leaders do this often. But 
in the 1980s, ?populism? and ?workerism? referred to two rival positions battling for the 
soul of the militant unions. ---- These debates, thirty years on, remain very relevant: 
let us revisit them, and learn. Today?s radical National Union of Metalworkers of SA 
(NUMSA) was part of the ?workerist? camp, while its key rival, the National Union of 
Mineworkers (NUM) was identified with ?populism.? The early battles over the direction of 
the Congress of SA Trade Unions (COSATU) still echo today, although there is no longer a 
clear ?workerist? camp.


What was ?Populism??
The 1980s ?populists? were basically supporters of a brand of African National Congress 
(ANC) politics.

They aimed at a ?popular front? of all oppressed classes and strata in the black 
population ? including black capitalists and homeland leaders ? plus white anti-apartheid 
democrats. Their programme was basically ?nationalist,? which meant the whole ?nation? was 
to unite across class lines and express its will through a nation-state. The 
anti-apartheid movement represented (they argued) a multi-class, non-racial ?new nation? 
in the making,

This nation and the class alliance it represented, ?populists? said, had to be led by a 
political party, the ANC. Through the ANC the ?new nation? would take state power, rule 
South Africa and uproot apartheid and its legacy.

?Populism? and Unions
So, in the 1980s ?populism? basically meant uniting as many forces opposed to apartheid as 
possible (and in particular, oppressed black people as a whole) under ANC leadership.

And since the ?national? or ?popular? and ?democratic? alliance had to include ALL 
classes, it could NOT take a revolutionary anti-capitalist position, since this would keep 
out capitalists. Anti-capitalists in the ?populist? camp ? notably the SACP ? argued that 
the aims of this ?national democratic? struggle were basically to overthrow apartheid, not 
capitalism. ?Socialism? would only come after the ANC-led ?national democratic? struggle 
was underway. To make ?socialism? an immediate demand would split the nation.

For ?populists? in the trade union movement (especially in NUM and around key figures like 
Cyril Ramaphosa and Jay Naidoo) this meant giving the ANC the reigns of struggle and 
making unions part of the ANC?s camp. This meant unions would support the ANC taking state 
power as a political party.

Problems with ?Populism?
Simply, ?populism? supported what we now have: an ANC-led Tripartite Alliance, in which 
COSATU is a junior partner. COSATU?s role is to aid the ANC?s ?national democratic 
revolution? (NDR) by providing money, leaders and votes.

One problem is that alliances like this are used to control unions: since NDR is a 
multi-class, capitalist project, COSATU ends up supporting a capitalist, statist ANC in 
the name of ?revolution.? Through the alliance, the working class is married to the ruling 
class of capitalists and politicians which oppresses and exploits it. So, the Alliance 
benefits the elite much more than the working class.

Nationalist politicians claim to represent the whole society, but society is divided by 
classes. The ruling class (the political and economic elite) are at war with the working 
class. Cyril Ramaphosa, billionaire, ANC deputy president and co-owner of Lonmin, the site 
of the 2012 Marikana Massacre, is evidence that the black elite have nothing in common 
with the working class, black or white. It is difficult to see how, in such conditions, 
the legacy of apartheid can be uprooted without some sort of radical bottom-up ?socialism? 
(anarchism) being created.

Second, many COSATU leaders get rewarded for being in the Alliance and are co-opted into 
the ruling class ? meaning they are turned against the workers. Ramaphosa, a former NUM 
leader, is a good example ? but he is only part of a larger process that corrupts and 
weakens unions. This process leads to certain COSATU leaders doing the dirty work of the 
ANC and the ruling class that runs it.

?Populism? is basically in favour of the state ? the problem is that all states serve the 
ruling class. To think the state can be used for the masses is an illusion.

?Populism? also serves the politicians. It aims to attract as many people as possible so 
that it can to get its political party into state power, most times via elections. To this 
purpose, populists regularly hijack working class struggles and swallow the movements of 
the masses on their road to power. ?Populism? uses militant rhetoric, but, ultimately, is 
an elitist project.

Coupled with the tendency of ?populism? to corrupt unions, populism has a strongly 
anti-democratic tendency: working class movements get corrupted, misled and used. This is 
surely clear after more than 20 years of the Tripartite Alliance in SA.

What was ?Workerism??
?Workerism? in the 1980s meant a left-wing current centred on a bloc of trade unions, 
mainly in and coming from the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU). Formed in 
1979, FOSATU was the key union federation before COSATU and included the Metal and Allied 
Workers Union (MAWU), which would later make up the core of NUMSA.

?Workerists? like FOSATU?s Moses Mayekiso and Joe Foster were critical of alliances with 
black elites and tended to anti-capitalist positions. ?Workerism? opposed ?populism,? 
predicting ? correctly ? that the ANC would turn on the working class once in state power. 
It stressed that nationalists always attacked the working class after Independence, 
pointing to Robert Mugabe?s repression of unions in the early 1980s in Zimbabwe.

The ANC?s ?populist? style was also criticised by ?workerists? for undermining democratic 
mass organising. While FOSATU built mass structures, factory by factory, based on meetings 
and mandated shopstewards, ?populists? relied on unaccountable leaders who announced 
campaigns and expected the masses to follow. This made the ?workerists? wary of working 
with movements influenced by ?populists.?

The ?Workerist? Alternative
?Workerists? were not entirely united on giving an alternative to ?populism,? but 
generally wanted some sort of ?socialism? after apartheid fell. ?Workerism? stressed 
ordinary people must have a real say: they criticised the top-down, dictatorial Marxist 
regimes of Russia and China.

?Workerists? insisted that unions not be allied to nationalists like the ANC, or Marxists 
like the SACP. ?Workerism? depended on workers acting through the unions and saw no reason 
for a political party to direct the struggles of workers and their communities. It 
emphasised the importance of independent BUT political unions: these should have their OWN 
political direction, not decided by outside parties.

Democratic, worker-controlled unions should also provide leadership to other working class 
sectors, like township movements. ?Workerists? sought to intervene in neighbourhoods 
through union ?locals? in townships and by promoting democratic models of community 
organising. They could be said to have favoured a working class ?united front? ? against 
the ANC?s ?popular front.? The new nation, they argued, would be non-racial and working 
class-controlled.

Problems with ?Workerism?
There were some similarities between ?workerism? and syndicalism (anarchist trade 
unionism), but a core weakness of ?workerism? was the lack of a clear enough approach of 
change ? or outline of a future society ? as compared to the ANC?s concrete ?NDR? project.

?Populists? seem to have been better organised, winning ground against ?workerists.? While 
?workerists? had a big impact in areas like Alexandra, ?populists? captured the political 
space in many townships.

Some ?workerists? even came to take pro-ANC positions. The drift continued in the 1990s 
and Mayekiso (for example) became a close ally of the neo-liberal ANC President Thabo Mbeki.

End of the debate: COSATU
COSATU?s founding congress in 1985 was heavily shaped by FOSATU. Its political resolutions 
were quite ?workerist?: worker-controlled unions and unions to play a political role 
independent of ALL parties. But arguments between ?workerists? and ?populists? were not 
over ? just postponed.

By 1987, ?populism? was in the ascendance. By 1990, COSATU was openly allied to the ANC. 
Only in 2014 has a major COSATU union, NUMSA, finally made moves to pull out of the 
Tripartite Alliance.

http://zabalaza.net/2014/11/26/our-history-of-struggle-the-1980s-workerist-populist-debate-revisited/