Robert Fine , The Anti No Mines of Neo- Marxism

8/8/2019 Robert Fine , The Anti No Mines of Neo- Marxism

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REVIEW ARTICLE TRAN SFOR MAT ION 11 (1990)

Review Article

THE ANTIMONIES OF NEO-MARXISMA Critique of Harold W olpe's Race, Class and the Apartheid State (London:Jam es Currey, with OA U, U NES CO , 1988, pp 1-118)

Robert FineIn the 1970's Harold Wolpe played an important role in putting Marxismback on to the map of South African scholarship. Along with other so-called'neo-Marxist' writers, Wolpe critiqued the prevailing neo-classical view(which he calls liberal-modernization theory) that the racial ord er in SouthAfrica was irrational as far as capitalist development was concerned. Heargued that there was a functional - though changing - relation betweencapital and the racist superstructure of segregation and apartheid and hesought to infuse african nationalism with a more socialist content which tookcognizance of the class content of racialism. For the developm ent of SouthAfrican Marxism, Wolpe's contribution remains a major resource.In his recent book on Race, Class and the Apartheid S tate Wolpe reviewsand revises the ideas which he espoused a decade or more earlier. He doesso in the light of the practical and theore tical developmen t of the libera tionstruggle. This is not in my view the most successful of Wolpe's writings. Itseems to me to lack the conceptual rigour and historical supp orts necessaryfor the rea lization of his task. In this review, however, I shall co ncen tra te onthe content rather than the form of his argument.A major focus of this work comprises Wolpe's wrestling anew with thelongstanding and at one time furious conflict between neo-classicism and

neo-Marxism. His general method is to criticize both paradigms in turnbefore seeking to construct a new synthesis. The question which I shalladdress concerns the nature and adequacy of W olpe's synthesis: what kindof amendments to traditional neo-Marxism does he offer? how far does hesucceed in transcending the limitations of the old paradigms? How shouldwe assess the theo retical and political direction now taken .Race and classWolpe criticizes race-based theories which 'conceive of race... as theirreducible constituent and determinant of social structure' and treat socialrelations within and between racial groups as 'exclusively governed by racialcategories' (1988:12). He argues (rightly in my view) that 'the form of the

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state is not reducible to its racial content' and that racial m otivations are not'prior to and autonomous of other social structures and processes'.On the other hand, Wolpe also criticizes 'reductionist Marxism' which,having concep tualized class as a purely econom ic relation, goes on to derivethe interests of actual class entities from this economic relation alone. Heargues that the concept of 'class' defines the economic relation betweencapital and labour but omits ideological, cultural and political qualities. Assuch the concept of 'class' for Wolpe is 'abstract' and not helpful as 'anempirical description of concrete classes' (1988:50). At the abstract level,Wolpe argues, 'both capital and labour are necessarily conceptualized asunitary and homogenous classes'; at the concrete level, however, class unitiesare always fragmented by racial and o ther non-econom ic distinctions. On thebasis of this twofold critique, Wolpe offers the conclusion that, to escape thesnares of race and class reductionism , it is necessary to analyze 'the complexintersection of these struggles in the political aren a' (1988:15).What I take Wolpe to be saying is either that class and race have equalanalytic status as scientific categories (rath er than see race for what it is, nomore than the ideological expression of alienated social rela tions); or that inthe South African context class is merely an abstraction while race is aconcrete social reality. What we find in this argument is that Wolpe's econ-mistic conception of class - which reduces the relation between capital andlabour to a merely economic relation removed from all juridic, cultural,sexual and political dimensions - leads directly to a reification of race desp iteall warnings against 'rac e reductionism '. It is through an economist theory ofclass that Wolpe prepares the ground for Marxists to endorse nationalism.What I am wishing to say here is that in South Africa the very idea of 'r ace 'is the crucial ideological glue which holds together the social order andunderwrites the exercise of power. People have to live as if race is not m erelya phantasm a - the ideological expression of social relations of alienation andexploitation - but is real. The state dem ands that people behave as if race is ,whatever they actually believe in their heart of hea rts. Because of this, life inthe apartheid system is permeated with hypocrisy and lies. Whenever indi-viduals reproduce the lie as reality - declaring that race is real rather thanthat the illusion of race has been turned into the reality of power - theybecome not just oppressed by apartheid but reproduce apartheid in thetexture of their everyday lives. The dividing line between apartheid andliberation is not only one between a group of white opp resso rs and a largergroup of black oppressed, but is a line which necessarily runs through eachindividual. Everyone is object and subject, victim and supporter of thesystem.

Just as liberation starts when the individual at great cost overcomes his or

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her a lienation by confronting th e appeara nce of race with reality, by refusingto live according to the logic of race, so the theorist of liberation has aparticular duty: not to treat the 'as if of race as real but rath er to reveal th etruth behind the lie, the human being behind th e racial archetype. Race andclass are not equivalent categories. Race is not the 'concrete' truth of life,but the illusion of those who exercise power and seek profit at the e xpenseof life. It is the triumph of abstraction over reality, the lie over tru th. In ou rtheoretical prac tice, we must fight against the apartheid aspect of our ownbeing. We must give bodily shape to our refusal: perh aps by no longer givingcapital letters to the racial concepts of the state (african, asian, coloured,black, afrikaner and white), no longer treat race as an inde pen den t v ariable,no longer allow ourselves to live within the theo retical system of ap ar the id.The problem of functionalismWolpe rejects the 'liberal-modernization' (or neo-classical) view that 'theracial order operates in contradiction to the rational modernizing tende nciesof the economy" and its conclusion that 'capitalism left to its own deviceswould dissolve white domination'. He also criticizes as reductionist theneo-Marxist argument that white domination is 'a necessary and inesc apab lecondition of the survival of capitalism in South Africa'. Wolpe argues thatthe relation between capital and apartheid is 'always simultaneously func-tional and contradictory* and tha t 'which pole of the relation will be dom inan tdepends on the historically specific conditions of the social formation'(1988:76).The p roblem is, however, that the defects of functionalism are no t resolvedby appending dysfunctions (or contradictions) to the functions of apa rtheidfor capital. We remain thereby in the same discourse. The language offunctionalism is that of functions and dysfunctions. The defect of function-alism lies not in the subordination of dysfunction to function, but rather ofform to function. It seeks to explain the apartheid state exclusively throughits functions and dysfunctions for capital (or economic growth more gen er-ally in its non-Marxist variants) without explaining the form of the aparthe idstate itself.

Marxist functionalism has the virtue from my standpo int of relating apart-heid to capital, but the functional link it construc ts betw een them abs trac tsthe dynamics of state formation from social relations between the classes,that is, from social relations of produc tion. Neo-Marxism treats capital a s athing rather than as a social relation to labour. The working class (with theexception of white workers who are treated fundamentally as whites) a pp ea rsas victim and opponent of state power but not as an active determinant ofthe form of state: an image which reflects the juridic forms of life in South

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Africa - in as much as they are defined by the political rightessness of allblack people - but which reproduces the state's own illusions of autonomyfrom society.In his historiography, Wolpe argues that 'despite certain contradictoryeffects' white domination was a fundamental condition of the reprodu ctionof capitalism in the period in which mining and farming were dominant,because of their dependency on cheap labour, but that 'the development ofcapitalism itself produced conditions such that the positive effects of whitedomination... began increasingly to becom e subo rdinate to negative or con-tradictory effects' (1988:28). Wolpe identifies the conditions which trans-formed the positive functions of racism into negative dysfunctions as theexpansion of industry, the growth in the demand for more stable and skilled

labour and the importance of the hom e market. In this regard his analysis isidentical to that of liberal-modernization theory. He concludes that in thepresent pe riod for 'certain white class fractions' - notably sections of manu-facturing capital - white domination has becom e an obstacle to the pursuitof their econom ic interests.W hat I wish to say here is that in ord er to understan d the class content ofapartheid, it is insufficient to enum erate its adequacies and inadequacies inserving the interests o r meeting the n eeds of capital. Capital doe s not live ina vacuum but in a definite relation to the other classes of capitalist society.

Fascism, democracy and apar theid are all forms of state which may serve theinterest of capital in general; what distinguishes these forms, however, arethe relations between capital, labour and the intermediary classes and notmerely the needs of capital in isolation.Class struggle and reactionTake for instance the crucial historical question of the rise of the aparthe idstate. W olpe, endors ing the account offered by Dan O 'M eara (which is alsosimilar to that of Saul and Gelb), argues that the HNP came to power as aresult of two re lated factors: the fierce class struggles of the 1940's waged bythe expanding black proletariat and the radicalized black m iddle classes; andthe crisis of the sta te which arose from the inability of the SA P governm entto satisfy the need s of mining and agricu lture for cheap labour, since it 'tookcognizance of the interests of the fast growing manufacturing sector for astable, urbanized labour force... an expanded home m arket... and the en dingof the migrant labour system' (1988;65).

In W olpe's view, the rise of apar theid was designed - even if it failed - to'suppress the emergent black opposition which threatene d the reprod uctionof white domination' (1988:66). This hypothesis, however, leaves the cen tralques tion unansw ered: if the re was such a powerful escalation of working class

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militancy in the 1940's, why was the labou r movement unab le to carve out amore democratic future of South Africa?; why could it not compel the rulingclasses to recognize the interests of labour and come to terms with itsdem ands?; if it did not have the strength to overthrow the state, why did itfail to push the rulers of South Africa into some form of acco mm oda tion, aswas favoured by the liberal wing of the ruling class, rathe r than see the statecaptured by its mortal foes?We cannot answer these questions as long as the rise of apa rthe id is seenonly as a 'response ' to class struggle but no t itself as an effect of class s truggle .We might make sense of this history better if we reverse the conventionalwisdom: let us open our eyes to the historical fact that the rise of ap arthe idwas not a response to the strength and militancy of labour and to the crisisof the state, but rather was the terrible consequence of the defeat of theworking class movement in the 1940's at the hands of Smuts' decisivelyrepressive government. If this was so, then the riddle of apartheid lies notonly in explicating its functions for capital but also in explaining the defeatof labour in the 1940's.Class struggle and reformWolpe's analysis of reform represents the other side of this same metho-dological coin. H e explains the reform policies pursued by the gove rnm entin the 1980's on the one hand as a result of 'pressures within the whitecommunity' (which derived from the growth of modern industry) to g en eratea more stable, better trained and more consuming black workforce; on theother hand, as a response to the potential of 'the mass democratic move-ment... to put into question th e entire system of white dom ination' (1988:94),that is, as the state's alternative to revolution. Wolpe assesses the reformstrategy of the government in the following terms: 'a collection of measureswhich are aimed a t allowing political activity but limiting the objective whichmay be pursued and at privileging to some extent selected classes or ca-tegories or black subjects with the intention of either creating divisionsamong the black masses, by creating a 'third force', or c o-op ting sectio n ofthe population into working with the regime or b oth ' (1988:94).

Wolpe's analysis is devoted to showing that the rulers' reform strategyfailed. He argues for instance that the reform of labour law was meant tosecure 'the institutionalization of industrial conflict' and 'the isolation of theblack trade union movement from broader political movements' (1988:91),but that it failed to realize its intention since COSAT U involved itself fromthe start in the national liberation struggle (1988:99).Wolpe argues similarly that the bantustan policy was aimed at the institutionof subordinate states which would 'act as agents for the regime... and

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establish the conditions for the development of a black bureaucratic bour-geoisie and pe tit bourgeoisie' (1988:91), committed to ethn ic and free marketpolicies and divided from the national liberation movem ent. H e sees this tooas having failed since even the most powerful bantustan leaders, like ChiefButhulezi of KwaZulu, are in his view confined to their ethnic base and'marginal to the struggles of the m ass democratic organ izations' (1988:96).Again Wolpe argues that the government's policy of building an urban blackpetty bourgeoisie, by 'economizing' the demands of urban black businesspeople, has failed because 'there is no mass following for those sections ofthe petit bourgeoisie', like the National African Cham ber of Com merce, 'whoare prepared to collaborate with the regime' and because even NAFCOCappears 'tentatively to be moving closer to the A N C (1988:97).

Wolpe argues that the reform of representative institutions, especiallythrough the creation of the tri-cameral parliament and community councils,failed in its aim of creating a 'third force', since those individuals andorganizations which participa ted in them 'have very little popular support'.W olpe's particular message is that, although state reforms have either beenmerely cosmetic or designed to divide, control and co -opt the black opposi-tion, they nonetheless have 'called forth apparatuses... which are new anddifferent' and 'opened new fields of struggle': boycott campaigns, legalactions and resistance to co-optation as well as repression. H e sees the massresistance of the mid-1980's as revealing 'the failure of the regim e's reformiststrategy to divide and d isplace the major thrust of the opposition ' (1988:102).There are imm ediate em pirical problems with this analysis of reform in the1980's. Wolpe does not mention the positive repeal of the Pass Laws, theImmorality Act, the Mixed Marriages Act, etc.; he does not mention thenegative repeal of many of the Wiehahn reforms und er the Labour ReformAct; he does not mention the bloody havoc caused by divisions betweenInkatha and the Mass Dem ocratic Movement in Natal; he does not men tionany of the real defeats inflicted on the liberation movement by the state inthe 1980's. The deeper problem with this analysis, however, lies in its veryconception of 'reform'.

At first sight the neo-classical and neo-Marxist schools draw polar oppos iteconclusions about the natu re of reform in South Africa. A ccording to liberalmodernization theorists, the need for reform grows as the antagonismsbetween aparthe id and capital sharpen with the expansion of the market; andthe forces of reform grow stronger w ith the developm ent of industrial cap italand labour. I cannot agree with Wolpe's contention that liberal modern-ization theory entails political indifference or abstention. Rather it is basedon an analysis according to which capitalists and workers have a commoninterest in winning reform of apartheid, whatever other differences divide

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them, and a political strategy designed to cement an alliance betweenprogressive capital, organized labour and liberal-nationalist politiciansaround a consensual programme of reform from above and self-restraintfrom below.In response to the weaknesses of reformism in South Africa, the viewdeveloped on the neo-Manrist left has been to discount 'reform s' as a meansof ideological subterfuge, social control o r co -op tation . Th e impossibility ofgenuine reform under apa rtheid is so frequent a refrain in this discourse thatthe very idea of 'reform' is bo und by inverted com mas. It may be acknow-ledged, as Wolpe does, that ce rtain 'reform s' change the terrain of struggle,but neo-Marxism rules out the possibility of real democratic reforms beingforced upo n the apartheid sta te from below.

Wolpe breaks from extreme formulations of this discourse when h e recog-nizes that trade union struggles have led to dem ocratic concessions on thepart of capital and the state. Yet he then tends to reify the separation of theeconomic from the political, arguing that 'struggles within the politicalsystem and the economy may be different and clearly distinguishable...mediated by distinct organizational and institutional matrices' (1988:55). Itmay be true to say that 'relations between the sph ere of produc tion and thesphe re of politics, may be com plem entary, con tradic tory or bo th ' (1988:55),but it does not help to identify the relation s mo re substantively.Looking back a decade , the imp ortant p oint in my view about the majoritytrade union response to th e W iehahn reforms lay in its recognition tha t theyrepre sen ted a real concession in the face of the struggles of the working classand intelligentsia. The readiness of most unions to register under the re-formed industrial conciliation machinery represented a major break fromthe prevailing neo-M arxist parad igm. T he break however w as only partial.The response of FOSATU was reactive in the face of liberalization fromabove and no t the result of conscious political action from below. Followingregistration there was little by way of political action (tho ug h the re w ere maywell-fought legal cases) to win more thorough-going st ate recogn ition of theunions, a less fettered right to strike, a sh orter w orking week, minimum paylegislation, etc . The possibility of winning social and dem ocratic reforms inareas other than that of trade unionism through political campaigns directedat the state was largely ruled out. To the extent that ba ttles for state reformwere pursued, they were largely piecemeal, negative and mediated throughpressures on capitalists who, it was hoped, would in turn pressurize thegovernment.The field of exceptions introduced through the trade unions representeda vital chink in the armo ur of the o rthodox left p aradigm bu t did not challengeit as a whole. Th e revolution in left thinking represen ted by the indepen den t

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unions was halted , as it were, half way. W olpe's theoretical separation of theeconomic and the political tends to reify this unfortunate caesura.To rule out the theoretical possibility of forcing the apartheid state to m akedem ocratic concessions is no less a dogma than the neo-classical illusion inthe inevitability of reform. The rejection of reform is the product of metho-dology which insulates the state from the impact of class struggle and whichinsulates the class struggle from any measures of its impact on the state (untilthe final moment of liberation). Sometimes the very savagery of state repress-ion appears as an index of the effectivity of the liberation struggle. To waitfor a state reform which does not seek to entrap the very forces to whichconcessions are made is to wait for ever. What I think we need is a majordiscourse shift on how we conceive of reform in South Africa, mindful tha tthe people do not exist for liberation but rather that liberation exists for thepeople.Nationalism and socialismIn defining his politics Wolpe starts with a threefold critique. Th e defectof liberal modernization theory, Wolpe argues, is that it affords to politics'no role to play in the process of social transformation', offering instead 'arecipe for non-intervention in the political struggle* (1988:27) - in my view awrong interpretation of liberal modernization politics and one which ob-scures its thinking. Second, Wolpe distances himself from the view associatedwith trotskysant theorists of permanent revolution (like Neville Alexanderand Martin Legassick) that in South Africa 'capitalist relations are bydefinition inescapably... racial' (1988:31) and that therefore true nationalliberation is inescapably anti-capitalist.Wolpe adds a third critique: against a 'workerism' which holds that 'thenational struggle cannot be an ingredient of the workers' struggle... sincenational liberation and socialism stand in contradiction' and which positsinstead that 'the correct political perspective is a 'p ur e' class struggle withthe working class alone going for socialism' (1988:33). He equates thesocialist critique of nationalism with 'workerism'.Wolpe endo rses the theory of'colonialism of a special type' associated withthe Communist Party and the ANC on the grounds that it captures thecontingent nature of the link between the racial superstructure and thecapitalist economy in South Africa. Wolpe's originality lies in stressingfurther the question of contingency. Joe Slovo saw the dissociation of capita land apartheid as theoretically possible but given the real balance of forcespolitically impossible. Wolpe puts on the agenda the real political possibilityof a future de-racialised capitalism replacing aparthe id. For W olpe the goodpoint about the internal colonialism theory is that it 'grounds the conten tion

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that the anti-racial or national struggle must have primacy'; its defect is itstendency to 'close off analysis of the class content of national struggles' and'its failure to recognize that the national struggle... may incorpo rate altern a-tive class objectives' (1988:32-33).Wolpe endorses the marriage of nationalism and socialism under thebanner of African nationalism, only seeking to affirm the socialist wing ofnationalism. Th e important po int for him is that we should not assum e that'a national struggle is necessarily also a struggle against the capitalist orde r'.Desp ite this theoretical criticism of the weaknesses of th e intern al colonialthesis, empirically Wolpe draws the conclusion that 'no section of the na-tional liberation movement is committed to a struggle for what may betermed a bourgeois national democratic revolution' (1988:33). He cites asevidence an AN C statement affirming that it rega rds the working class as theleading force in the struggle for a national democratic state, an SACPstatement committing the party to 'profound agrarian transformation' and'the socialization of those sectors of the economy in the grip of monopolycapital' (1988:34), and a socialistic inte rpreta tion by W olpe himself of theeconomic clauses of the Freed om Char ter.It is improbable that W olpe could sustain the assertion that 'no sec tion ' ofthe liberation movement is for a deracialised capitalism. T he m ore im portan tquestion, though, concerns W olpe's endorse ment as a Marxist of the primacyof nationalism in the South African struggle. Th e co ntention that A frican orsome other form of nationalism represent the natural political form ofopposition to the racism of the Afrikaner nationalists - and the converseargument that socialist class politics are inappro pr iate in the context of thebattle against aparthe id - these ideas con stitute in my view the irrational co reof this approach. They account for the concep tual he ada che s suffered whenseekbg to metamorphosis Marxism into nationalism. In general, SouthAfrican Marxists (Communist and Trotskyist) have acceded far too readilyto the appeals of nationalism. To affirm socialism rathe r than nationalism isnot to subordinate the race question; it is to addres s th e r ace ques tion in asocialist rather than a nationalist way. Is it not time to stop painting nation-alism red and to drop the assumption that nationalism is the 'natural'response to race .Strategy and structural determinationFor Wolpe the benefits of structuralism are that it addresses the ways inwhich 'struggles are structure d by the specific form of political te rra in andthe state'. H e argues that 'structural conditions ... mark the cha racte r of aperiod and provide the specific context in which the content and directionof political conflicts can be un dersto od '. W olpe criticizes au tho rs like myself

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and Dennis Davis - and identifies the historical school associated withCharles Van Onselen as revealing the same problem - whom he believes to'make no serious attem pt in the evaluation of strategy either to specify thoseobjective condition or to indicate how they are to be taken into account'(1988:21).H e criticizes our alleged belief that 'class struggle alone will de term ine thespecific effectivity or otherwise' (1988:60) of the state and our explanationof liberation strategies in terms of'the movem ent's composition, organisationand leadership' (1988:21) at the expense of 'the conditions which make on estrategy rather than another plausible' (1988:61). Wolpe conceded th at 'th eform of the state is not the single determinant of the nature of the struggle'and that he does not mean 'that othe r forms of struggle could not or shouldnot have been und ertaken' by the liberation organisations. Against what hesees as the defects of voluntarism, however, he insists that 'th e form of sta teis one albeit extremely important condition of the struggle' and that 'strugglesand structures must be understood in relation to one an other' (1988:67).Wolpe couples his theory of structural determ ination to a theory of 'p eri-odisation' which recognizes 'discontinuity" and 'stru ctural transformations'between one period and the next. H e identifies three periods with the overalldominance of apartheid: 1948-1960,1961-1972 and 1973 to the pre sen t. Inthe period 1948 to 1960 he argues that the structural conditions for massstruggle were presen t. He identifies two sets of factors: the 'form of the state'which he says was charac terized by the subordination of the executive to th elegislature and by a considerable degree of judicial independence, and the'political terra in' which he says was characterized by 'deeply roo ted extra-parliamentary mass organisations which were in the proc ess of rad icalisingthemselves' (1988:65).In the course of the period of the 1950's Wolpe argues that the 'powerfulmass struggles' of the liberation movement induced the government to'narrow the space for legal political action' and 'enhance the power of theexecutive... at the expense of the judiciary' (1988:67). The regime found,however, that it was 'incapable of subord inating... the political oppo sition onthe basis of its existing normal pow ers', so leading into the next pe riod.1960-1973 was marked according to Wolpe by the 'obliteration' of theextra-parliamentary political terrain and within the state the supremacy ofthe military and the executive over parliament and th e judiciary . As a resultof these structural transformations, Wolpe argues, severe constraints wereimposed on the possibility of mass action. The issue, therefore, was armedstruggle and battle for state power, since 'the space for political campaignsand even illegal political work among the masses was virtually sealed off(1988:71).

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Wolpe explains the re-emergence of the mass extra-parliamentary politicalterrain in the 1970's not as a result in change in the form of state - on thecontrary he argues there was a continuing expansion of executive and militarypower - but of the growth of modern industry. This led to 'pressures withinthe white community for the reform of apartheid' (1988:83), particularly onthe part of manufacturing capital, and to the growth of the black workingclass.The historiographical effect of this theory of structural determ ination is torationalize the strategic history of the liberation m ovement. The strategiesof the liberation organisations appear to be dictated by constraints fromabove, notably the form of state, and by the prevailing consciousness of themasses below. The liberation organisations them selves appear to have beenleft little or no choice but to adopt the strategies which they did.In this approach, the diversity of political views over what was to b e donein a given situation is ironed out in favour of the apparent inevitability andimmanent rationality of the decisions reached. We are reconciled to the ideathat there were no serious alternatives and no real choices , since the leader-ship did what any rational leadership would have to do. Such a conceptionof strategy conceals the nature of strategic ch oices as the tangible expressionof particular parties seeking as best they can and in accordance with theirown history and social character to make sense of their situation and act uponit. It generates (or expresses) a language of moral absolutes - a discourse ofideality on the one side and betrayal on the other - rather than a language ofpolitical debate and diversity.The problem is particularly evident when confronting the defeats sufferedby the liberation movement. Wolpe's theory tends toward a normalization offailure taking a number of forms. The reality of defeat may simply be ignored;defeats may be rationalized as the exclusive result of external factors on theassumption that there was nothing which the liberation organisations couldhave done differently, defeat may be presented as only an apparent failuredisguising a real advance; or finally defeat may be naturalized as a necessarymoment in the progress of every revolutionary m ovement to its ultimate goal.

The tendency to normalize failure is accompanied in this discourse by atendency to presuppose the progressiveness of the strategic turns whichfollowed defeat. The strategic history of the liberation movement is thenunderstood as a sequence of distinct phases, each one representing a higherstage of political consciousness than the last. We find the period of petitionsand deputations coming to a close at the end of the 1940's; then an advanceto the period of mass struggle in the 1950's; a further advance to the periodof armed struggle in the 1960's; then the combination of mass and armedstruggle taking off in the 1970's. History appears as a rational progression as

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each phase plays its part in setting the stage for the new approach. Ratherthan question the teleological assumptions of liberation historiography,Wolpe reifies them in his theory of pe riodisation.It is this method w hich underlies Wolpe's analysis of the curre nt situation.He sees it as one of unstable equilibrium, marked by the inability of theregime t o suppress the mass opposition and the inability of the mass o pp o-sition yet to overthrow the regime. Wolpe discounts the possibility of anegotiated settlement, in spite of international pressures, citing on the onehand the government's antipathy to negotiations and the 'extremely severeconstrain ts' it faces from its social base; and o n the other radicalism of theliberation movement's minimum political and economic demands. He dis-counts the possibility of a 'Chilean so lution', that is, the physical ob literationof the liberation movement through terroristic methods, citing both thecapacity of the mass movement to withstand repression and the obstacles inthe way of the regime attempting such a solution. He discounts a 'reformistsolution' on the ground that the extensive reforms needed to satisfy theliberation movement would be incompatible with the power base of thegovernment.Th e solution W olpe offers lies in finding the t rue synthesis, as he sees it, ofarmed and mass struggle: in the form of an escalation of the armed struggle

of the A N C into a peo ple's war and an escalation of the mass struggle intoan insurrectionary movement. This ideal conjuncture, as W olpe pre sen ts it,'remains to be achieved by the liberation movement'. It seems to me, how-ever, that this implausible scenario has less to do with putting socialism backonto the map of the anti-apartheid struggle than with turning Marxism intothe extreme wing of the nationalist movem ent. This is not a road the libera-tion movement should go down.Note1. Some of the arguments m entioned in this review are derived from and developed furtherin Robert Fine and D ennis D avis (1990) - Beyond Ap artheid: Labour and Liberation InSouth Africa (London : Pluto)

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Robert Fine , The Anti No Mines of Neo- Marxism