Armed Struggle in South Africa: Consequences of a Strategy Debate
It would be possible to draw a line from the founding leaflet of Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK), issued on December 16, 1961 (and from the 1962 South African Communist Party [SACP] programme, The Road to South African Freedom) to the Harare Declaration of 1989 – and to the eventual outcome and claim that the strategy of the African National Congress (ANC) was always for a negotiated settlement to achieve democracy in South Africa (Umkhonto we Sizwe 1961, 1989a, 1989b). That indeed is the idea which Allister Sparks attributes to NelsonMandela: “I startedUmkhontoWe Sizwe ... but I never had any illusions that we could win a military victory; its purpose was to focus attention on the resistancemovement” (1994:26). However, that standpoint is contradicted by the decisions of the ANC conference at Morogoro (April 25–May 1, 1969) and by countless other ANC documents which insist that the goal was the armed seizure of power by the masses.
Is South Africa in a Revolutionary Situation
Alex Callinicos, South Africa between Reform and Revolution (Bookmarks: London, Chicago and Melbourne, 1988), 221pp, £4.95. William Cobbett and Robin Cohen (eds), Popular Struggles in South Africa (Review of African Political Economy, in association with James Currey: London, 1988), 228pp, £9.95. John Suckling and Landeg White, After Apartheid — Renewal of the South African Economy White, (Centre for Southern African Studies, University of York, in Association with James Curry: London, and Africa World Press: New Jersey, 1988), 204 pp.
People's war, People's Army
Abstract : Contents: The Vietnamese people's war of liberation against the French imperialists and the Ameri can interventionists (1945-1954) People's war, people's army The great experiences gained by our Party in leading the armed struggle and building r volu io ary armed forces Dien Bien Phu.