Marxism in South Africa: Context, Themes and Challenges*

noted the shift by left-wing and union-linked intellectuals from socialism to social democracy, and the claim by these theorists that 'Marxism is not voluntarily accepted by the working class'. Their experience (the abstract told us) was very different On the basis of correspondence to Learning Nation and of fieldwork, they argued that 'the working class wants socialism and recognises the need to understand marxist political theory'. The shortage of contributions on such a central topic of concern to marxist intellectuals may reflect a broader theoretical inadequacy. How much do marxists activists and academics know about the temper and content of working class politics? Marxist historians and sociologists have told us a good deal as to how the South African working class was constituted, and how it was located within the relations of production but much less on the proletariat as agency, its self-assessment of its capacities, its attachment to class interests. Eddie Webster's conference paper explores two areas of concentration in industrial sociology: on the one hand, studies of the labour process and the workplace, and on the other hand 'working class cultural formations and the powerful political traditions that shape the attitudes and political behaviour of organised workers'. But perhaps he would agree that much of this latter work placed culture rather than politics at the centre of its concerns. However, this is not the main question I want to pose about working class consciousness. Rather, I want to revisit the issue touched on in the Learning Nation abstract, the level of popular attachment or openness to socialist ideas amongst the working class. It was frequently remarked during the struggles of the 1980s that strong anti-capitalist sentiments permeated youth, community and union politics. Typically, this was expressed in the same breath as opposition to apartheid: an early consumer boycott pamphlet was headed 'Industry and government two sides of the same bloody coin'. The slogan very crisply encapsulated the central social reality that black workers are subjected to a dual exploitation as blacks and as workers. So far, so familiar. But how does this translate into political practice? What are the strategic implications? Mike Morris has written a fascinating account of the 1990 conference in New York on the theme 'What is the future of socialism?' During its course, two South African speakers (both prominent members of the ANC/S ACP alliance) gave partial and quite different answers to these questions. Joe Slovo mentioned South Africa's exceptionality as one of few countries in the world where the communist party and socialist ideas are not reviled and quoted the statistic (from, I think, a Financial Mail survey) that a majority of Africans expressed support for a socialist future. He later spoke about post-apartheid society: The post-apartheid state... will move towards redressing the im-