Although Lusaka organised and raised funds for many comrades to study abroad, much of this was in medicine and engineering and not economics. Bheki Langa, who did his PhD in economics in Moscow, was a rare exception. One thing Sisulu recalls was the eagerness of many younger comrades to join MK and fight rather than study. Thandika Mkandawire supports this contention when he makes the point that many of the post-1976 generation who reached Lusaka ‘were relatively ignorant of the struggle and its objectives and had a militarist inclination’ (2005: 134). And they were eager, too, to pursue a leap into socialism without any consideration of the realities of the South African situation. ‘We had to work very hard to try to convince them otherwise,’ Sisulu argues (Interview, 25 August 2016).
When Josie arrived in Lusaka in 1983, the Economics Unit was not very strong at all. Its members included Sindiso Mfenyana, Joe Nhlanhla and Max Sisulu. According to Josie: ‘Thabo was ostensibly the head as the Unit fell into the Department of Information and Publicity. Pallo Jordan was head of Research and as such was an integral part of the Unit. I was deployed as an economic researcher under Pallo in a place called Makeni [a suburb of Lusaka] – that’s where the whole library was – and so on and we had to do research’ (Josie interview, 30 January 2015).
Josie argues that London-based economists and members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), Laurence Harris and Ben Fine, were influential figures in the Lusaka debates (such as they were) on economic issues.
Josie also recalls that a meeting on the economy took place in 1985 in Lusaka, where the notion of the mixed economy came to the fore. But he remembers the conference for one other reason as well:
The most significant thing that happened at that 1985 meeting which stands out for me quite clearly was that while we were sitting in that plenary, Pallo or Max who was chairing said, Thabo is coming, and he is bringing some South African from Stellenbosch, a guy called Van der Merwe [likely to be Hendrik van der Merwe]. He came there and talked to all, sitting and looking there and discussing issues, very cynical, very kind of patronising – we got this all covered, guys – you know that kind of attitude, and I sat there. It only later dawned on me, in fact these guys were the forerunners of the negotiations that were taking place, because later on Wimpie [de Klerk] and all these guys came over. In fact, he [Van der Merwe] was part of the delegation with Wimpie that came and he was the economic person (Josie interview, 30 January 2015).
For Josie, it was Hani who had the vision to raise more practical economic policy issues linked to the struggles of ordinary South Africans in the townships as opposed to mouthing this or that theoretical line:
Chris was very seldom in Lusaka, but when he did come he played a very key role, because he was more on the frontline, he was inside the country, he was training people, he was in MK, he was the real revolutionary, and I worked closely with Chris and even with [Joe] Slovo. When Slovo was in London, he would talk to Laurence [Harris] and people like that, but in Zambia I would be the one they would discuss with. You could see Chris’s view. He was not verbose, he was very reflective but he would raise some clear issues, and he was the only one in my view that came across very strongly on the issue of redistribution. Chris Hani was very clear; even Slovo did not raise it as sharply as Chris Hani raised the issue of redistribution and inequality as opposed to just poverty. And for Chris Hani this was one of the key areas that needed to be addressed, because none of the others raised the issue. And I think for many of us who came from the townships, that was a key issue, because we could see what was driving the problems in the townships on the ground, and all indicators that came through were showing that levels of inequality, levels of poverty, education, all those strikes and things, were about inequality (Josie interview, 30 January 2015).
Gail Gerhart and Clive Glaser sum up the Freedom Charter debate and the broad economic stance in the 1980s, on the eve of the many ‘meet the ANC’ gatherings across Africa and Europe, as follows: ‘Had numbers and high position counted, the communists in the NEC [National Executive Committee], who made up at least three-quarters of its members after Kabwe, might have been expected to swing their weight to ensure that the ANC’s vision of a future South Africa conformed to socialist principles. But this did not occur; instead, the ANC’s blueprints emerged with a clear social democratic stamp’ (2010: 150).
In January 1986, a report appeared in the Star newspaper that the South African Nafcoc had held informal discussions with the ANC after it had drafted a business charter of social, economic and political rights and an accompanying action programme. While reluctant to disclose which members of the ANC they met, the Star report notes that Nafcoc had held prior discussions with various members of the Cabinet, including the minister of constitutional planning, Chris Heunis (Star, 22 January 1986). We know that David Willers, the London director of the South Africa Foundation, sent the Federated Chamber of Industries charter to the ANC’s Solly Smith. The ANC in Lusaka received the charter on 6 February 1986. Key aspects of the charter included the following: ‘South Africa must publicly remain committed to market-related policies in an essentially open economy’, and there is a need to ‘implement an integrated programme for growth-oriented adjustment based on supply-side economic considerations’ (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 126, Folder 60).
It is interesting to note that a major purpose of the Economics Unit was to ensure that the movement had trained economists thinking about the future economic emancipation of a democratic South Africa. ‘Our drive towards national emancipation is therefore in a real way bound up with economic emancipation. Preparations for the attainment of genuine economic independence cannot be postponed until freedom day’ (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 24, Folder 5).
Sadly, there is no evidence that this noble objective was met, and after 1990 the ANC scrambled to develop such a policy-making capacity.
The Department of Economic Planning
Following its second National Consultative Conference in Kabwe in 1985, the ANC decided to upgrade the Economics Unit by establishing the Department of Economic Planning (DEP). This was done in June 1987. Among those joining the DEP at this time were Bheki Langa, who had just completed his PhD in the Soviet Union. Max Sisulu was appointed the head.
The objectives of the DEP were to develop economic strategy and policy options for an ‘independent South Africa’ based on the ‘aspirations of our people as expressed in the Freedom Charter’ (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 24, Folder 4). Research on policy and strategy is added for the first time to the rather less ambitious goals set for the Economics Unit. Areas added at this stage were the macroeconomy, energy and power, public finance, the role of women in development, wildlife and tourism, as well as income distribution – all policy areas absent from the list of responsibilities developed for the Economic Unit (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 24, Folder 4).
The Research Unit of the Department of Information and the DEP had extensive contacts and formal relations with a number of organisations in both the non-governmental organisation and academic sectors in many parts of the world. These included the Economic Commission for Africa (members attended the 14th session in Niamey, Niger, in April 1988), the United Nations Environment Programme (members attended the 1st session of its Governing Council in Nairobi in March 1988) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (two delegates attended the 35th session on debt and development in Geneva in September 1988). Soon it developed a productive relationship with the Department of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, through its contacts with Laurence Harris, who had long been involved in intelligence work for the movement along the Botswana border (Keable 2012). Harris, with later support from Ben Fine and Peter Robbins, established EROSA, which worked closely with the movement in London and Lusaka (see chapter 4). It also worked closely with the Transnational Institute in Holland (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 24, Folder 4).
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