‘Inqindi and Marxism’
Kathrada, who admitted to knowing little about economics, pointed out that little or no economic or social policy debates occurred on Robben Island in the first ten to twelve years after 1964. The Freedom Charter, including its economic clauses as approved by the ANC in 1956, was accepted without question. However, in the later 1970s, after the Soweto student protests, many young ANC cadres arrived on the Island. After they fled South Africa, they had been trained in countries such as the German Democratic Republic. These young comrades contributed to a revival in discussions about both political strategy and (to some extent and indirectly) economic policy. The meaning and value of the Freedom Charter in changing circumstances became a subject of intense debate (Kathrada interview, 9 October 2015).
It seems that the coming to power of ‘Marxist’ parties in both Angola and Mozambique in the mid-1970s was also a powerful lever to reopen these debates. While the two-stage theory of revolution and internal colonialism was not directly raised, the question that arose was: if the Angolans and Mozambicans could take the great leap from essentially peasant societies to Marxism-Leninism, why not South Africa? Could South Africa, too, not take one big step to socialism? (Maharaj interview, 16 August 2016).
It was in that context that the document that came to be called ‘Inqindi and Marxism’ was drafted. Inqindi is an isiZulu and isiXhosa word meaning ‘fist’. Little has been written about this milestone document that was produced and circulated on Robben Island after 1978. It is not even certain who wrote the first draft, or who edited it. Kathrada tells us that he acted as something of a go-between among prisoners in the drafting of the document (Kathrada interview, 9 October 2015).
According to Kathrada, Mandela and his comrades in B section had a first stab at it, and later, after comments were received from comrades in other sections, he was tasked with liaising with as many comrades as he could and writing the final version, incorporating all comments. There were two main aims of producing the document. The first was to encourage all comrades, whether from the ANC or the South African Communist Party (SACP), to study Marxism. The second aim was to remind comrades of the difference between a national struggle and class struggle (Gerhart and Glaser 2010: 492–497). The core of the arguments in ‘Inqindi’ relate to the role of the working class in the struggle, and from there about whether the struggle was for a nationalist or a socialist future. There was a debate about the use and meaning of the phrases such as a ‘national bourgeoisie’, ‘national democracy’ and ‘bourgeois democratic republic’, which were used in drafts.
For us here it is important to realise that one element of the debate was to understand the economic basis of class conflict through ‘scientific knowledge’. However, there was no elaboration on this point and we are no wiser from studying the document about how far forward it took the understanding about the nature and character of the struggle. On one point, however, it is clearer and more interesting: ‘Unlike Marxism which guides a CP [communist party] before and after the taking of power, the role of African nationalism is limited to the pre-liberation phase of the struggle. It cannot be used to reshape society after liberation, nor for the purpose of developing a new mode of production different from capitalism or socialism, as some political organisations claim’ (Gerhart and Glaser 2010: 497).
In the end, it could only be claimed that the document asserts the dynamic nature and flexibility of the Freedom Charter and its value to the struggle over two decades after Kliptown – in short, a ‘progressive nationalism’ (Gerhart and Glaser 2010: 497).2
Maharaj, who was no longer in prison when ‘Inqindi’ was being drafted, recalls the mood and thinking around 1978:
But I know a number of comrades, who were the leading voices in our internal discussions on the Island, raised the question on whether the time had not arrived for the ANC and the Congress movement to proclaim its objective of socialism. Because we were looking at what was happening in Angola and Mozambique with a sense of excitement … So, whatever was happening was in a very strange way being taken and put into a theoretical box that you created … You were not looking (sic) that the reality was changing your theoretical outlook … So, when I got out of prison [1976] and I got to Mozambique, I was there for just a few days, but I remember my shock when I learned that the barber shops had become nationalised. And I said, my God, is this what I was saying is a great development, right, what is this about? (Maharaj interview, 16 August 2016).
In summary, within the limits of the strict censorship of literature, some reading around questions of the economy took place but these readings and discussion did not lead to any direct consideration of economic or social policy. Some debates over the Freedom Charter’s clauses did occur but there appears to have been consensus about the correctness of the Freedom Charter’s broad-church approach. The question of whether a direct (one-stage) struggle for a socialist goal should be waged only comes up after the arrival on Robben Island of the young post-Soweto generation of prisoners. ‘Inqindi’ represents an attempt to come to grips with their concerns, but in the end it does not resolve the matter one way or the other.
IN EXILE: LUSAKA, THE ECONOMICS UNIT AND THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC PLANNING
The nature of life in exile
Physically, it’s like being in South Africa again. I feel at home and elated. The climate is mild, unlike the enervating humidity of Dar es Salaam and Luanda … jacarandas are in bloom. Then there are the images: Asian shops with Coca-Cola and Vaseline adverts in so-called ‘second class’ business districts; the crowded townships abuzz with hawkers selling everything from boot polish to bananas and single cigarettes; the suburban houses with ‘Beware of the Dogs’ signs; walls with jagged glass along the tops to deter ‘kabalalas’ (burglars); South African railway wagons with the SAR–SAS logo in English and Afrikaans; school kids in neat European-style uniforms … (Kasrils in Macmillan 2013: 6–7).
Hugh Macmillan also reminds us, however, that ‘any study of the ANC in exile has to begin by stressing the homesickness, loneliness, pain, alienation, sense of loss and the waste of energy and time that were essential features of life for most exiles and for much of the time’ (2013: 1). There can be no doubting this sense of pain and loss.
The ‘semi-detached member of the ANC’, Ez’kia Mphahlele, observed in an interview:
When I was abroad I felt that the ANC in exile was quite something else. The leaders were there all right, but the things that they were doing just didn’t seem to me to be important at all. Trivialities like attending conferences of one kind or another, tearing across the world, you know, and getting international money. Also, tribalism was pretty rampant in the exile movement. Xhosa against Zulu against Sotho. I kept saying to myself: back home there had been so much cohesion among us. I mean nobody ever bothered about these ethnic groupings at all. But in exile, man, the thing just emerged in bold relief (in Macmillan 2013: 3–4).
A second contextual point to note concerns the well-documented narratives of corruption, greed and personal wealth accumulation that pervaded the ANC in Lusaka, at the expense of the movement’s foot soldiers. There are accounts of smuggling donated goods across borders for private gain, of foreign funds being diverted to buy luxurious cars for top ANC officials and more. Terry Bell reminds us: ‘Hani and six of his comrades penned a memorandum complaining of the nepotism, rot and corruption in the ANC after the shambles of the Wankie and Sipolilo campaigns of 1967/8. For Hani’s pains a hearing was held, and he was sentenced to death, a sentence later overturned by then acting ANC president OR Tambo. Hani left the ANC for a time before being persuaded to return’ (Bell 2016: n.p.).
One final point on the Lusaka context was made by Jeremy Cronin, and that relates to the splits and divisions among the ANC membership based there:
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