Arguing for a workers' party based on the non-racial unions in apartheid South Africa (1985-94)
Three extracts on the debate about working-class strategy in the years of the decline and fall of apartheid in South Africa. Workers' Liberty 3, "Breaking the chains: black workers and the struggle for liberation in South Africa". September 1985: [There has been] a big growth of the black working class. In 1960 there were 540,000 black workers in mining and 450,000 in manufacturing. In 1980 there were 740,000 in mining and 1,150,000 in manufacturing. In January-February 1973, 100,000 black workers — shipbuilders, stevedores, drivers, textile, brick and tea workers — round the Durban area...