(Socialism Today No 5, February 1996)
Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela, 1995.
Reviewed by Peter Taaffe.
This account of Nelson Mandela’s eventful life offers many insights even to those familiar with the main landmarks in the South African struggle. It is impossible not to be moved by the heroic struggle it recounts, the boundless self-sacrifice and determination to go to the end.
In the book Mandela makes clear he was never a socialist. Originally, like many leaders of the youth wing of the ANC, Mandela and his compatriots like Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu, were ‚Africanists‘: „The ANC was the one organisation that welcomed everyone, that saw itself as a great umbrella under which all Africans could find shelter … African nationalism was our battle cry, and our creed was the creation of one nation out of many tribes, the overthrow of white supremacy, and the establishment of a truly democratic form of government“.
But this initial flirtation with ‚Africanism‘ was dropped once he and his chief collaborators saw the need for unity on a non-racial basis. Although Africans paid the highest price the ANC articulated the need for a unified struggle with the slogan of ‚one man, one vote‘ (later one person one vote). This is a powerful illustration of the instinct and generosity of the African masses for unity, particularly given the brutality and viciousness of the white-dominated regime.
Despite Mandela’s collaboration with the Communist Party, through the ANC, he is at pains to distance himself from Marxism and ‚communism‘: „We were extremely wary of communism … We may borrow from foreign ideologies but we reject the wholesale importation of foreign ideologies into Africa“. Paradoxically, at one stage, he subscribed to „dialectical materialism (which) seemed to offer both the searchlight illuminating the dark night of racial oppression and a tool that could be used to end it“. However, this was not the first time a leader of a national liberation movement in the colonial and semi-colonial world adopted some of the language of Marxism and espoused ’socialistic‘ ideas, only to abandon them when they have fulfilled their purpose in mobilising the masses.
The book gives a very vivid account of the mass civil disobedience campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s which were met with bullets, culminating in the 1960 Sharpeville massacre. It also gives a full account of how the ‚Freedom Charter‘ was adopted with its clear emphasis on socialism.
This was underlined by the call for „the national wealth of our country, the heritage of all South Africans … to be restored to the people; the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole“. Mandela tries to explain away these clauses in the Freedom Charter as being unconnected with socialism. However, this is not the way the South African masses saw it, as the insistent demands in the 1980s for the nationalisation of the big monopolies, mines and banks showed.
Mandela paints an interesting picture of the emergence of the Pan-African Congress (PAC) in 1959. The PAC echoed the naive Africanism of Mandela in his youth. Although as he says he found their behaviour ‚immature‘, he nevertheless sought points of common agreement with the PAC. At this stage the ANC, while the main liberation movement, still had to take account of support amongst the youth for the PAC. The PAC was the main force behind the mass demonstrations in Sharpeville which led to the 1960 massacre. One of the strengths of Mandela is shown here. He explains the need to seek common actions with other organisations, in effect, embryonic united front activity.
His weaknesses, however, are shown in his approach, particularly in 1980, to the issue of how real liberation could be achieved. Mandela initiated the process of negotiations, first in a tentative unofficial fashion, without the support and backing of the ANC leadership itself. After he was transferred from Robbin Island to Pollsmor in 1982 he was constantly engaged in discussions with the government. Yet at this time the ANC leaders in exile were calling for the people to make South Africa ‚ungovernable‘ – and the mass movements of the working class, in particular, were making this a reality as the 1980s progressed. In the face of this it was Mandela himself who took the initiative to negotiate with the government.
The regime through its various spokesmen tested out whether Mandela was prepared to give concessions to the ‚minority‘. Mandela suggested the possibility of assurances to the white population in discussions. The idea of a ‚blocking mechanism‘ for the white minority was implicitly conceded by Mandela.
Before releasing him the apartheid regime pressed Mandela to separate himself from the Communist Party and to water down commitments to taking over big industry. Mandela’s reply was the following: „I explained that we were for a more even distribution of the rewards of certain industries, industries that were already monopolies, and that nationalisation might occur in some of those areas. But I referred them to an article I wrote in 1956 for Liberation in which I said that the Freedom Charter was not a blueprint for socialism but for African-style capitalism. I told them I had not changed my mind since then“.
Mandela the early firebrand, Africanist and opponent of apartheid capitalism has since presided over a South Africa which is still capitalist. And as he concedes the problems have not been overcome. Indeed, on a capitalist basis the nightmares flowing from the apartheid era will never be overcome.
Mandela is still a great hero to the African masses because of his colossal sacrifices. But because of his limited outlook, his rejection of Marxism, he played a role in dismantling apartheid, but not in carrying through a fundamental transformation of society.
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