By Steve Tshwete, elected as the Border UDF President in 1983 (Abridged)
The UDF as a Front
From the outset, I want to dispel some silly notions in the heads of leading members of the ruling clique and their henchmen on the nature and role of the United Democratic Front in the struggle for national liberation.
We are a front organisation. No apologies. Like any other front elsewhere in the world, we are a mouth-piece of a number of organisations whose short and long term aspirations are given expression and authenticated in the unity in action which we along, at this point in time, can effectively forge. The organisations we represent are all lawful and operate within the four corners of this country.
Not a single one of those organisations has descended, ready-made, from outer space upon the democratic and peace-loving people of South Africa. On the contrary, these organisations are the direct product of the objective reality in a country that has gone strange to democracy.
Though we cannot boast of any ideological homogeneity as a front, the organisations at our command are nonetheless committed to the ideal of a united, free, democratic and non-racial South Africa, in which the will of the people, not the will of a clique, shall bear sway. That is the primary thrust of the UDF.
It is not the first time that resistance to the apartheid regime has brought together different organisations of diverse political persuasions to take a common stand against it. In 1936, for instance, the then South African National Native Congress extended an invitation to all organisations and individuals of the oppressed to attend a convention in Bloemfontein, and there to adopt a common position against the notorious Hertzog Bills. It was a popular indaba, comprising of political, cultural, religious and sports organisations of the oppressed and exploited masses.
It might have not been destined to take on a permanent form, but it certainly did prove one point of particular significance to the UDF: that there is always room for the oppressed and fighting democrats to pool their individual efforts. Points of difference are not overriding. We can always submerge these and project those aspects which bring us together. Over the passage of time, with persuasion and discussion, the edges may become blunted, suspicions dissipated and unity achieved.
And the best workshop where such unity can be hammered is in the field of action. As long as we agree to resist and work together to attain certain immediate goals, so long will the possibility of ultimate unity be ascertained.
I want to single out the Alexandra bus boycott - one of the longest and bitterest in living memory. Without clogging you with much detail, the outstanding achievement in so far as this campaign was concerned is the fact that, perhaps for the first time in the history of the liberation struggle, we witnessed spontaneous expression of solidarity, in particular by the Indian community in Johannesburg, with the people of Alexandra. We are told that some members of the Indian community would wake up early in the morning, walk the long distance from Fordsburg to Alexandra to catch up with the throng of marching commuters. The process would be repeated in the evenings.
What is of relevance to us in this example is the fact that this expression of solidarity was not as a result of a resolution by the South African Indian Congress. On the contrary, the response must be seen as a product of the objective reality in South Africa at a time when popular slogans of Afrikanerdom were: "Kaffir op sy plek" and "Koelie uit die land." In the circumstances "Kaffir" and "Koelie" had enough cause to come together against the common enemy in spite of whatever other differences might have been between the two.
And of importance again is the fact that that the unity of the two was not wrenched in a conference room, but it was forged in the theatre of a practical struggle. When the doctors Xuma and Dadoo came together in 1946 as leaders respectively of the ANC and the Indian Congress to inaugurate the Congress Alliance in the name of the Dadoo-Xuma Pact, they were merely giving formal endorsement of an idea already clinched at mass level.
This Pact was in a very realistic sense a front. It was designed to coordinate and direct campaigns. The two communities (African and Indian) could speak with one voice and march forward in one step. In due course, and again as a result of the fascist bent in South Africa after the seizure of power by the Malan clique, the 1946 front was enlarged immediately after the 1952 Defiance campaign to comprise such organisations as the Congress of Democrats, and the Coloured Peoples Congress. This was formed the Congress Alliance. In 1954 the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) was to be the fifth member.
The most significant difference between this front and the UDF is the fact that all affiliate organisations, SACTU excepted, were political organisations with one ideological persuasion. That is not the case with the UDF. That, of course, does not mean that the Congress Alliance did not have problems. They were there and some of them hand an ethnic tinge. But these problems could and were surmounted - and not by confrontation and abuse. Consultation and constant consultation, discussion and persuasion formed the open sesame.
For it is important, comrades, to understand that differences between the people cannot and should not be solved in any other way. Of course we need to distinguish here between healthy and unhealthy differences. The former are genuine and struggle-orientated, while the latter are a product of self-centeredness, reaction and mischief-making and carry all the attributes of a clique. As a matter of principle we do not waste our time and sacrifice progress once this reactionary trend has been identified. It is precisely on that score that the Leballo clique had to be dealt with the contempt they deserved at the Congress of the People in 1956.
One other difference between the UDF and the Congress Alliance consisted of in the fact that the latter had a spearhead in the name of the ANC, whereas the UDF cannot boast of such a fact. This is a glaring omission.
We should briefly look at other front organisations elsewhere in the world to follow the argument of a spearhead! Lets take the National Liberation Front in Vietnam. It was a tremendously huge alliance of all political, cultural and religious persuasions. Normally it would be difficult to bring these groupings together for a sustained period of time in the absence of the common enemy - the French and later American imperialism. But the Lao Dong party not only brought them together, but also served as spearhead -the pace setter of long term objectives. In that position it understood that the Buddhist, for instance, would not go beyond the expulsion of imperialism and the establishment of a people's democracy.
Similarly with the Patriotic/Partisan Fronts in Eastern Europe during Hitler's occupation of the continent. The various communist parties in these countries served as spearheads of extremely broad fronts; some affiliates of which had no sympathies at all with issues like the dictatorship of the proletariat! And significantly for all for us, the Marxist parties in all these fronts did not project their own programmes over and above those of affiliates.
Whilst the working class position had to be strengthened, it was observed that in a compromise position like a front, tact and skill must take precedence. You don't denounce that other wing as bourgeoisie and retrograde. You don't not call that one a lackey of so and so and dub that one as a centre-piece of progress and beauty of the front. You must just understand his weaknesses and shortcomings. Once you discover the distance he is prepared to travel in the long march to a People's Day of South Africa, it is becomes your responsibility to persuade him to take another short mile with you. It is persuasion all the way. The successes of the Congress Alliance and other similar front organisations the world over can be attributed to this essential understanding of the compromise nature of a front.
Democracy within the Front
I have designated a front organisation as a compromise organisation.
That implies a give and take situation. Don't be over-exerting and over-demanding.
Allow a certain measure of flexibility within the broad framework of our policy.
As an executive committee we should be able to take decision and formulate policy. At no single point in time should we ever address ourselves to affiliates without a particular bias on any given issue. This is important and allows you the privilege of influencing the course of events. It is a privilege position, because the perspective any executive will always be wider than that of affiliates who necessarily must be able to see only as far as their limited affiliates horizon.
Once you have communicated your view to your affiliates, you must not entertain ideas that it is gospel. The affiliates must discuss your viewpoint, criticise it, reject it or endorse it. In turn their own standpoint is transmitted to the executive, which in turn, after determining the most popular viewpoint go back to the affiliates and acquaint them with the latest detail.
No matter how strongly one felt about one's particular point of view, once a popular decision has been struck it becomes binding on all affiliates. No dissent will be allowed. Otherwise if one continues to cling to one's standpoint against the majority view and continues to canvas the defeated position, then one is operating as a clique and obstructing action and progress. This tendency must be exposed to all affiliates in a political analysis which must underline the destructive nature in a people's front, and within the affiliate organisations' themselves.
At the same time no organisation must use its popularity and unilaterally decide on a campaign without consultation with the most relevant organisation in relation to the campaign. To illustrate: COSAS cannot unilaterally decide on a stay-away without prior consultations with the sister labour unions, nor can any trade union unilaterally call upon students to boycott classes. Mistakes of this nature are bound to rock the front and cause disunity. We must not undermine the leadership of the diverse organisations at our command if we seek to advance revolutionary work.
Transformation of the UDF
Recently, ideas have been flung that the UDF in the post-Koornhof and tricameral situation must be transformed into a political party. My own persuasion in this regard is that necessity is forced upon us by the dictates of objective conditions then we have no alternative but to do so. But, I want to believe that at the moment such a move could only spell danger for the good work that has been done and the lot that remains to be accomplished in the foreseeable future.
The advantage of the present poise is that we are in a position to command vast influence among the broad masses of our people by reason of organisational membership. In the current year, thanks to the Million Signature Campaign and the anti-election campaign, we have traversed even those areas where politics was a strange concept. We have been able to temper our people in the urban and platteland areas in a manner that has no parallel in history. Through affiliate organisations the UDF became a household word. In that manner we had taken our struggle to almost every home and thereby projected the mass nature of our cause. It would have been difficult to score these resounding victories had we been constituted otherwise.
The task that lies ahead is quite momentous: we have to reach those thousands of our people wherever they are, appeal to them not as individuals but as organisations. In the Karoo, Northern Transvaal and the OFS effective UDF presence can only be made when the popular organisations that were set up during the anti-election campaign are consolidated and given direction, the rallying point at all material times being the conditions under which the people find themselves on a day to day basis. So that insofar as the future of the Front is concerned, my feeling is that we maintain the front nature and broaden our scope of activity.
The anti-elections campaign has enhanced the prestige of the UDF. The (apartheid) government and its puppets were on the run, as they always must as long as they remain strange to the truth. The clampdown on the UDF leadership and the brutal shooting of our people on the Rand and Vaal Triangle are an expression of frustration and impotence. At the same time it has been amply demonstrated that no force on earth can conquer the combined mass action of the oppressed and fighting people of South Africa. Even on the international plain our position has been tremendously enhanced by the success of the campaign, whilst the racist government has become more of a skunk.
But this does not mean we should be victory drunk. It means more work, more mobilisation and more vigilance against opportunists who may seek to climb on the crest of the present wave of anger.
The UDF and the Freedom Charter
Comrades, I cannot see how any organisation can be in a position to come up with a better set of demands than those enshrined in this ever-green document. At the same time, any attempt to formulate a watered-down version of those demands is certainly a sell-out position in the context of the present struggle.
The people of South Africa have gone a long way to reach the Kliptown. For us to shun these demands would be outright reconciliation with the status quo and imperialism. I agree that Le Grange linkage cause would be strengthened, but we know and everybody in his right sense knows that the Freedom Charter is and was never an ANC document. The ANC had its own documents like the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and African Claims.
The Freedom Charter belongs to the people of South Africa and at this point in our struggle there is no reason why we should not adopt it as an alternative to the racist constitution. Everyone of those ten points can be used to rally our people anywhere in South Africa. It has been haled throughout Africa as a realistic document. The progressive international mankind applauded it at various forums as an ideal alternative. Nelson Mandela and Anderson remained fascinated with it right up to now.
The masses have coined moving songs out of every one of the ten points in the Freedom Charter. The masses of our people love it and need to know it deeper. Those of our affiliates who still entertain aversion against it, need to be educated about it in a persuasive and tactical manner.
To sum up: Long live UDF. Long live our Presidents. A Thousand years Mandela. Amandla!
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