TRANSFORMATION 7 (1988)                                                 DEBATE
A REFLECTION ON THE VON
HOLDT-PLAUT DEBATE
                                                                   D Glaser
    Debates around the political significance of COSATU, and more
generally between Svorkerists' and 'populists', have focused on two
questions:
    1) What organisational and class alliances contribute most effectively to
the struggle against the apartheid state?
    2) What organisational and class alliances ensure that the struggle against
the state - the struggle for national liberation - will set in motion some kind
of transition towards socialism?
    Neglected, in my view, is a further question:
    3) What organisational alliances will most effectively contribute to the
building of a socialism that is genuinely democratic?
    I think Von Holdt has successfully addressed questions (1) and (2),
demonstrating that COSATU - its political style and alliances - is likely to
significantly improve the strength of oppositional forces confronting the state
and to increase the socialist content of the national liberation struggle of
which it is part. In this respect I think that Von Holdt is, on the whole, on
stronger ground than Plaut.
    The merit of Plaut's 'rejoinder' (and less so of his original contribution)
is that it raises question (3) - how do we ensure that the struggle for national
liberation and socialism will also be a struggle for genuine democracy?
     Now for those who regard the building of socialism as synonymous with
the building of democracy, this is a non-issue. But historical experience has
shown that substantial elements of socialism can be set in place without a
society enjoying significant levels of democracy. In a number of countries -
the USSR, in Eastern Europe, in parts of the Third World like Cuba,
 Vietnam, China and North Korea - a social ownership of the principal means
 of production has been established, there is substantial central economic
 planning, minimum living standards have been guaranteed (albeit at a low
 level) and the mobilisation of working people in political institutions at
 various levels, in the state, party and elsewhere, has been extended. Yet, these
 same societies have been characterised by one-party rule, the fusion of party
 and state bureaucracies, the suppression of political pluralism and civil
 liberties, and the subordination of organs of mass participation - including
 trade unions - to the overall dictates of the party leadership.
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   GLASER                                                          TRANSFORMATION
      To demonstrate, then, that the advent of COSATU strengthens the
  national liberation movement's capacity to challenge the state, and the
  likelihood that a successful challenge will then be followed by the
  commencement of a transition to socialism, is not in itself to demonstrate
  that the transition to socialism will be democratic in character. Of course, no
  such guarantee can ever be given in advance, not in any struggle. The problem
  is that the issue of democratic socialism has either not been seriously
  discussed at all, or else it has been taken up in a far too narrow and restricted
  way.
      This claim may, on the face of it, seem unfair. If the meanings of
  democracy and its relationship to socialism have been largely neglected by
  the proponents of popular democratic politics, the so-called 'workerists'
 have, by contrast, continually stressed the importance of establishing
 structures of mandate and accountability in the workplace, and have
 suggested that the presence of such structures in turn increases the likelihood
 that worker self-management will develop in future as a counterweight to
 bureaucratic domination in a future socialist-oriented state. More recently,
 during the height of the people's power movement in the townships during
 1985-6, some writers associated with mainstream extra-parliamentary
 organisations themselves began to extol the creation of embryonic forms of
 direct democracy outside of the workplace. The trouble with this argument
 - whether applied to factories or townships - is twofold. Firstly, it mistakenly
 assumes that the workplace model of 'direct democracy* can serve as a model
 for political representation at all levels of government, and that the
 promotion of workplace (or some other form of direct) democracy is
 therefore a sufficient substitute for any discussion of the complexities of
 democratic representation in a future socialist- oriented society. In fact, one
 can raise serious doubts about the possibility and even the desirability of
generalising the workplace model of representation throughout a future
 policy. It is not at all clear, even in principle, what such a generalisation of
workplace-type direct democracy would involve - governing a country from
the factory or neighbourhood? Election of representatives to a central
assembly indirectly through local assemblies, rather than through direct
election from the base? Exercising one's vote only as a member of a
functional body or corporate unit rather than as an individual citizen? A
class-restricted franchise? Or what?
     There is not room here to engage in any kind of extended discussion of
the limits of'direct democracy'. But it may be worth just mentioning (without
elaborating) some of the issues that are unlikely to be addressed adequately
by any model of democracy derived exclusively from work-place or
'councillist' conceptions of organisation. These include problems about how
to structure national-level political representation: how, for example, to
ensure proportional and direct representation of the electorate at the centre,
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 TRANSFORMATION                                                          GLASER
and how to avoid leaving a vacuum at the centre that can be filled by
authoritarian elites beyond the control of institutions best suited to
encouraging local participation. They include the problem of how to
democratise political decision-making at all levels as opposed to simply
increasing participation in administration; how to ensure that popular
political debates are open, public and conducted on a national level rather
than parochial, localised and fragmentary. Then there is the problem of how
to extend effective democratic participation beyond a restricted range of
organised social groups located in the most politicised factories and
townships; how to define the boundaries of electorates; how to define
appropriate voting units (eg factories or neighbourhoods) and to deal with
cases of voters located in more than one such unit, or voters located in
neither; and generally how to accommodate the trans-situational character
of political actors who may not define themselves exclusively as workers,
producers, consumers, members of a profession, or according to any other
one corporate identity, but as several of these simultaneously, or even simply
as composite 'citizens'.
    Moreover, an exclusive focus on workplace direct democracy results in a
neglect of any discussion of the conditions under which mass participation
in political and economic management becomes, or ceases to be, genuinely
democratic. In fact, many of the bureaucratic and authoritarian regimes
associated with orthodox communism have elaborated a plethora of
institutions and movements through which they have attempted to increase
popular mobilisation in the 'administration of things'. These include
neighbourhood and district assemblies, unions and factory committees
elected courts and national and regional assemblies, and women's and youth
movements. The problem is that the advent of these bodies has not been
accompanied by an extension of political pluralism and civil liberties; on the
contrary, it has been accompanied by their diminution. There is little
freedom of association and no inter-party competition within these bodies;
all of their activities are subject to the control from above by a single
entrenched ruling party. Under these circumstances mass participation
becomes either localised or apolitical in scope or serves a purely ritualistic
and ratificatory function. It enables authoritarian one-party states to
 mobilise popular energies for the chosen projects and to legitimise their rule.
 In most cases it has generated cynicism and apathy rather than any genuine
 release of the creative potential of the masses.
    The elaboration of organs of self-management through which citizens can
 exercise one or another kind of direct democracy is, of course, an absolutely
 crucial component of building socialist democracy. But it can never exhaust
 the meaning of socialist democracy. It cannot, for example, serve as a
 substitute for the development of national-level institutions of representative
 democracy, based on direct election from the base to the centre, universal
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   GLASER                                •                       TRANSFORMATION
  franchise and secret ballot. But more importantly, to enjoy any real
  democratic meaning, it must be accompanied by an extension, rather than
  contraction, of political pluralism and civil liberties. Multi-party democracy
  and freedom of expression and association do not exist only for the
  enjoyment of ruling classes and elites. There can be no proletarian
  democracy as long as poor and working people are not free to join and vote
  for parties of their choice.
      There is no single direction that socialism always takes and no one party
  has a monopoly on the wisdom needed to determine the 'correct' direction;
  moreover, not every worker is a 'born' socialist. A socialist path can never be
  democratic, and is unlikely to enjoy legitimacy in the working class, where
  workers do not have the freedom to choose between socialist and non-
  socialist options, as well as between different, and potentially highly
  divergent, socialist models and policies. Of still more immediate importance,
 there can be no such democracy for as long as workers are denied the
 freedom to establish and join trade unions, and to exercise, through unions,
 a genuine independence from the state.
      For the fact of the matter is that no societies building socialism - and
 indeed no envisagable developed socialist society of the future - is likely to
 be contradiction-free, socially homogeneous or without distinctive interests.
 Nor is the working class itself likely to be above sectionalism, reducible to a
 common world view or to one set of material interests. Workers in particular
 plants or industries may have strongly felt differences with, or feel alienated
 from, factory managers (even elected ones), or state economic
 policy-makers, or they may harbour political grievances. To suppress these
 distinctive interests - even where they generate a combative opposition to the
 state - would be to violate basic democratic principles of representivity and
free association, and to risk the disaffection of large sections of the working
class. The existence of trade unions which are independent of the state, and
which are free to strike and adopt a militant stance in defence of then-
members' interests, is one of the crucial indices of genuine democracy in a
socialist (or any other kind of) political order. It is therefore very much to
Plaut's credit that he posed the issue of trade union independence from a
post-apartheid state, and that he seeks to situate his discussion of COSATU
and its alliances in relation to it.
     I would go further than Plaut: I would say that the principal issue in
discussing COSATU today should no longer be whether the federation
deepens socialist content per se - or expands 'working class hegemony" -
within the national liberation movement. I think 'socialism' in one or another
vaguely defined sense has now - for a variety of historical reasons - won
widespread acceptance (in some cases an almost Utopian devotion) in most
sections of the liberation movement. The movement's critics on the far left
are mistaken, and missing the point, in denying that this is so.
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TRANSFORMATION                                                            GLASER
      Further, the key issue in discussing COSATU today should not be
whether it can overcome the strategic limits imposed by FOSATU's alleged
'reformism' and 'economism'. That older style of unionism, which was, as
Von Holdt convincingly argues, in many respects divorced from the struggle
for national liberation, is today a thing of the past. (Today, if anything, the
problem is the opposite: how to deal with the tactical and strategic fall-out
of a high-profile, massively politicised brand of trade unionism.) It is one of
the limitations of Von Holdt's 'reply* that he confines his contribution to
these rather shopworn issues.
      At least as important as (and certainly less resolved than) these questions,
is whether COSATU's political and organisational style contributes to the
building of a future society which is both socialist in orientation and
 democratic. As indicated above, democratic socialism must entail, on the
 one hand, the extension of popular participation in political and economic
 management, coupled to high levels of mass mobilisation. At the same time
 it must involve a guarantee of political pluralism and civil liberties, of
 freedom of expression and association, including the right of trade unions to
 exist outside of state control. Without these, popular participation and mass
 mobilisation are themselves devalued and are unlikely to acquire anything
 more than a limited symbolic content.
      I think that COSATU probably does contribute to the building of a future
 that is democratic according to these criteria. Its traditions of shop-floor
 democracy and its general size and strength are likely to counteract any
 tendency in a future post-apartheid society for the federation to evolve into
 a passive and bureaucratised 'transmission belt' between the the ruling party
 and the masses. But I think that Plaut is correct in discerning grounds for
 worry. The history elsewhere of relations between trade unions (on the one
 hand) and nationalist movements and orthodox socialist parties (on the
  other) has not been a particularly happy one, as the experience of
  post-independence Africa, or for that matter the repression of Solidarity in
  Poland in 1981, illustrate. To the extent, then, that COSATU is less critical
  of nationalism (or of bureaucratic dictatorship in Eastern Europe) than was
  its predecessor, there may indeed be some grounds for debate about the
  direction of its development.
      And this is not because co-operation with nationalist movements and
  orthodox socialist parties is itself undesirable. On the contrary, Von Holdt
  has effectively argued that trade unions cannot themselves 'lead' the national
  liberation struggle, but that union co-operation with political groupings is
  likely to strengthen both the organisational resources and socialist content
  of the wider struggle for change. Nor is it a question of whether the 'working
  class' can maintain 'its' independence by avoiding alliances with community,
  political and nationalist organisations. Von Holdt has successfully
  demonstrated that the unions are not synonymous with the working class,
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 GLASER                                                         TRANSFORMATION
 and that this class is present also in the various affiliates of the UDF and
 other non-union groupings. The question (to repeat once again) is rather
 whether trade unions - not as 'the' working class, but as the organisational
 representatives of potentially large numbers of workers employed in
 enterprises will, in a future society building socialism, enjoy freedom from
 direct control by the state and ruling party, freedom to articulate and, if
 necessary, aggressively to defend the demands of their (working class)
 members. Whether or not this principle is established affects not only
 COSATU but trade unions generally; the trade union current represented
 by COSATU is the main, but not the only, current in the trade union
 movement, and it is the 'independence' of all wings of the union movement
 from a future state and ruling party which is at stake. While a post-apartheid
 state is not immediately in prospect - may not be for a long time to come -
 Plaut is justified in asking whether the terms of relations between unions and
 political groupings in the present period advance, or retard, the development
 of a tradition of trade union autonomy within South Africa's culture of
 political opposition.
     In light of the issues raised here, there may also be grounds for concern
 about what appeared, until recently, to be an increasing ideological
 homogenisation in COSATU, and in particular a less accommodating stance
towards divergent tendencies and positions within its ranks. Provided it
secures its members' consent for doing so, and intensively debates its course
of action, a trade union federation can quite democratically choose to align
itself to one movement or party rather than another, as, say, the British unions
have done vis-a-vis the Labour Party. It is a moot point whether or not these
provisos were satisfied in the case of COSATU. But even if they were, a
decision in favour of a specific political alignment should not be at the cost
of the free expression and association within the federation of those
favouring different political alignments (or for that matter no alignments).
That the 1970s wave of 'independent' trade unionism developed outside the
rubric of existing political organisations was in part - as Von Holdt
demonstrates - a source of its weakness. But it was also one of its strengths.
Those unions spiritedly defended the right of representatives of all political
tendencies (provided they subscribe to certain basic principles) to join the
unions and even to organise and recruit among the union rank and file. This
may have reflected a concern to avoid divisions among its members, or a
quasi-syndicalist reluctance to intervene in politics beyond the factory floor,
rather than a commitment to political pluralism in union ranks. Nonetheless,
it did have the advantage of acting as a hedge against domination of the
unions by any one external political party or movement. It is this de facto
pluralism which has appeared to be at risk in the years subsequent to the
founding of COSATU in 1985.
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 TRANSFORMATION                                                         GLASER
    Against this worrying backdrop the decision by COSATU at its 1988
special congress to initiate a united anti-apartheid front extending beyond
its main allies, is an event of signal importance, and very much one to be
welcomed. Not only does it hold out the prospect of a more co-operative
relationship with NACTU and rival political groupings; the adoption of this
proposal is also an index of a greater diversity and balance of political
tendencies within COSATU itself. The consolidation of this trend can only
benefit the labour movement as a whole.
    Some might argue that the concerns being expressed here are removed
from the burning tactical and strategic questions of the day, that the question
of how to ensure a democratic socialist society in the future is less important
than - in particular - the question of how to counter the present regime's
mounting attack on COSATU. In fact, the two questions are closely
connected: a labour movement able to accommodate divergent tendencies
is much more likely to withstand repressive blows than one hidebound by
sectarian conflicts. But more importantly, a preoccupation with immediate
political considerations should not be used to exclude debates about the
longer term destination of the struggle and how existing political and
organisational strategies affect our chances of getting there. Unless the issue
of democratic socialism is placed at its core, the 'workerism' - 'populism'
debate is likely to become increasingly sterile, repetitive and even (for those
concerned about a future that is both socialist and democratic) beside the
point.
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