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The Last Years of Apartheid

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Herbert Vilakazi
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Extract

      “Everything in Russia is ‘as of old’, at the top.
      But there is also something new, at the bottom.”
      Lenin, 1911

The most crucial factor overhanging any discussion of Southern Africa today is the imminent revolutionary war between blacks and whites in South Africa. The Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 and the suppression of the ANC and PAC forced upon the leaders of the liberation movement the conclusion that only the violence of the oppressed against the white regime will bring about freedom for the blacks. Sharpeville, therefore, marked a watershed in the liberation struggle, in that the leadership of the liberation organizations abandoned hope of a peaceful resolution of the racial problem. They then proceeded, abroad, to begin preparations for the armed struggle.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , Winter 1978 , pp. 60 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1978 

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References

Notes

1. See Vilakazi, Absolom L., Fall, Ibrahim, and Vilakazi, Herbert W., Africa’s Rough Road: Problems of Change and Development (Washington, D.C.. University Press of America, 1977), pp. 226–258 Google Scholar; and the following forthcoming book by the present author: Marx, Karl, Racism and Africa (New York: Nok Press)Google Scholar.

2. See Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology and Manifesto of the Communist Party.

3. see Engels, Frederick, Anti-Dühring (Moscow: Progress Publishers 1969), pp. 116–129 Google Scholar.

4. Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick, On Colonialism (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House)Google Scholar.

5. See Lenin, V. I., “Critical Remarks on the National Question” and “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination,” Collected Works, 45 vols. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964),20. pp. 17–51,393-454Google Scholar.

6. Lenin, 32, pp. 481-482.

7. Lenin, 21, p. 214.

8. Trotsky, Leon, History of the Russian Revolution, 3 vols. (London: Sphere Books Ltd. Edition, 1967), 1, pp. 16–17 Google Scholar.

9. Engels, Frederick, ‘The Peasant Question in France and Germany,” in Marx, K. and Engels, F.,Selected Works, 3 vols. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), p. 458 Google Scholar.

10. Engels, Frederick, “Introduction to Marx’s The Class Struggles in France ,” in Marx, K., Engels, F., and Lenin, V. I., On Historical Materialism (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972), p. 268 Google Scholar.

11. Many people who have a superficial knowledge of the theory of Marx and Engels miss this point altogether. Unfortunately, it is also missed by many of our “learned” Marxists. Throughout his political life, Lenin waged a ruthless struggle not only against reactionaries but also against ultrarevolutionaries, who thought they had discharged their revolutionary duties by having nothing to do with “reactionary institutions.” I cannot cite all the relevant passages on this issue from his works; I will, however, recommend the. astonishingly brilliant essay “Against Boycott,” in Lenin, Collected Works, 13, pp. 15-49; see also “Left Wing Communism— An Infantile Disorder,” 31, pp. 21-117, and the important essays against otzovism, particularly 16, pp. 29-61; 17, pp. 334, 511; 18, p. 238. I have given more details of this contribution of Lenin to Marxist theory in a forthcoming essay “Lenin for Us.”

12. Mandela, Nelson, “Our Struggle Needs Many Tactics,” in No Easy Walk to Freedom (New York: Basic Books, 1965), particularly pp. 62–65 Google Scholar.