Here is the most important (and final) portion of our interview with Trevor Ngwane. Trevor explains what happened to the powerful and revolutionary traditions of the movement against apartheid, how it was “decapitated” and the traditions buried, what are the consequences for today, and where we go from here. The points Trevor makes directly apply to the movement of today around the world.

Immediately below is the video of the interview and below that is a transcript. It can also be heard on Oaklandsocialist’s podcast.

John Reimann
In the 1980s the black South African working class led the world. They were an inspiration to 10s of millions all around the world, including here in the United States. But what happened to those revolutionary traditions? Here in the final, and most important, section of our interview with Trevor Ngwane, Trevor discusses exactly those questions Among other things, he explaines how the leadership of that time was “decapitated,” and what the results are for today, and what that means for us who wish to who see the necessity for carrying on those struggles. Let’s start by reminding ourselves of what those traditions were, feel that

Moses Mayekiso in 1986
this is the workers’ struggle. They must take the lead. They mustn’t leave the youth and the other progressive organization fight fighting the battles of liberation alone. The workers feel that they must be involved in that, and they are the only section of the society that is powerful to lead the struggle, the liberation struggle, and in South Africa, we don’t want to change the face of the government to put the black capitalists forward, but what we want is to change the system, to change the society, to change society where they will where there will be no exploitation of men by men that lead to a socialist system, a proper socialist system, socialist society where workers have control of their lives.

Trevor Ngwane
The apartheid movement at the point of taking power, of defeating apartheid, it was decapitated because the whole leadership was sucked in, into bourgeois, parliamentary, bourgeois corporatist structures. So I remember the first thing would happen after local councilors, political representatives were elected in Soweto, they would move to town. Can you see?, so the guy is elected to represent this place, but they immediately moved to town, you know, you know, for bourgeois, and the the competition… I was in the ANC. the competition, the political competition, was directly linked to self enrichment. So that whole leadership, that whole left into the Stalinist Communist Party, forget about their inherent weaknesses, even if they were good people, but they lost their way. And then the trade union movement, like you are saying, you know, because of the strength of that movement in the 80s, because of what it achieved, can you see, because it was never defeated? You know, there’s never been a a clear cut battle between the bourgeoisie, or a bourgeois state, and the working class in South Africa, you know? So it continued. But the point is of class collaboration on top, the the leaders were making money. Mandela and them created a direct escalator from top union official to Parliament. That’s Mandela and then the bosses. They created an escalator from top union official to CEO of a company. That’s what happened. Ramaphosa is a billionaire. He was the leader of the National Union of Mine Workers. So that’s what happened.

John Reimann

If I could just interrupt one second: what you’re talking about about – I was in… Were you familiar with the Committee for Workers International?

Trevor Ngwane
Yes, of course.

John Reimann
I was involved with them. They had a group – the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC. And I remember going to conferences. This would have been in the late 1980s I remember two young women from that group who were very strong, powerful young women who I found out later became millionaires. So that’s an example of what you’re talking about,

Trevor Ngwane
And from the Marxist Workers tendency! Exactly! So just think of people from the from South African Communist Party, you know, they were like sitting ducks. They’re like sitting ducks. So, remember, we had a movement here, I think, from the year 2000 to 2005 we had the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, we had the anti privatization forum – basically in Soweto,we were organizing around energy, access to energy, access to water for the working class that movement. At the forefront of that movement were grannies, grandmothers. You know? The reason, of course, they are in charge of the council houses. But it’s because the unions turned their backs on that movement. It got no support whatsoever. because COSATU was with the ANC and the Communist Party, whatever, whatever. So even those independent grassroots movements found themselves either sidelined, ignored or repressed, certainly denigrated. So, you know, small guys like me, suddenly you are being talked about in very high sections of government. You know what I mean, like, “who? Who is this guy? Trevor, you know, no, these people are misleading our people.” So there was a real, real concerted effort by the ANC and the Communist Party in collaboration with COSATU leadership, and the Civic Movement. Their organization was called Sanco, South African National Civic Organization to actually squash any left independent effort or initiative. Now today, the results of that are clear. And it’s worse now, because there’s all this confusion about the global south and the global north, about China and Russia. You know, nostalgia about Russia, admiration for Putin amongst some comrades.

Trevor Ngwane
Remember what happened with our workers party, with NUMSA, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party? Yeah, we supported it. It was funded, probably by the Chinese, but certainly through that guy, the the billionaire, who’s that guy? Neville Singham, yeah, who’s made a mess in USA too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it destroys the thing. Man, just through pure money. So now the left.

Trevor Ngwane
So there are some, let’s say green shoots, among the far left, but the ones I’ve seen, the most prominent, they are sectarian. So they say things like, “I will never work with keep left. Will never work with socialist group. I’m socialist group, ja, because they represent an old politics.” So these are the people who are trying to find a new politics. So they want what they call democratic Civic Politics. I understand they’re trying to change tactics, strategy. You know, it’s all desperate, even when we’re doing those movements like the landless people’s movement, anti privatization forum, soweto strike committee, the theorization was, these are the new social movements. But that also neglected to see the continuities with the past. And remember also, if you don’t see the continuities, you know, like we’re still fighting for the same thing, basically, then there’s also no continuity with methods you see. So you don’t learn from the past. You’re trying to, you’re trying to draw a line, you know, between what happened before. So this is the issue. So, so they left. Well, I think the last blue was the so called NUMSA moment. You know when, when the Metal Workers Union split from the ANC, from the Alliance, and they formed the the United Front, and then they formed the Socialist Workers Revolutionary Party. But it turned out that the the leadership, besides being confused by the millions, was still essentially Stalinist, you know, or they hadn’t shaken off their Stalinist habits, which is not trusting the working class socialism from above, etcetera, etcetera, yeah. Classical operation. Classical operation.

John Reimann
Two things that I would draw from what you’re saying is what you talk about absence of continuity. But then, as you just said, in a way, there is a continuity, but people aren’t really conscious of it, and that’s the continuity of the Stalinist traditions. And you see the same thing here in the left – all that stuff from the left, from the history of the whatever you know 50 years ago. “We don’t need to think about that.” And in actuality, what they’re doing is they’re adopting the traditions of Stalinism. But since there’s not a serious look at that history, nobody really knows it, except for a few people at the top.

Trevor Ngwane

You know, whatever negative assessment I have, you know, people try. So we hd this meeting, for example, NUMSA abandoned united front, but we still continue with our little, tiny united front. You know, also, exactly you know, for that continuity, it embodies, you know,” hey, this is what you started. Forgot about it.” So there’s a movement here around climate change. So, you know, so sometimes the left find space and do things.

Trevor Ngwane
Climate justice, yeah. Remember those movements, they tend to be funded through NGOs so they can continue. So some of the left end up there. Certainly as socialists, we support those initiatives. So we had this successful, I think, two or three workshops. So this guy had come to get a honorary degree, so we brought him to Soweto, you know, I mean, he’s an academic, and he wrote books about environmental racism in the US. So it was all inspiring, you know. And in all the discussions, one youth stood up and said, he didn’t even say comrades. He said “elders. He. You know what the problem is? We as a youth, we don’t know what is socialism. Please help us.” So I started a little group, you know, with some youth. I still continue with them two, three years later, but that’s how it started. Like they just said, “Hey, we don’t know about socialism.” So there’s been when the movement was decapitated, decapitated. It was decapitated.

Trevor Ngwane
And then also remember, socially. The the striving to be middle class, to make it to a middle class is not necessarily negative, because it’s people trying to improve their economic situation, and that’s the model., You know, “I’ve got a car or whatever, or I’m educated.” But that that striving for upward social mobility was linked to a a distancing from that tradition of struggle.

Trevor Ngwane
I think that is the ANC’s biggest crime, you know what I mean, to trample on the socialist vision. That’s why they can go and kiss Trump’s ass, you know, because there’s no other let’s say economic developmental strategy. Yeah, there’s always protest. You know, people are protesting either there’s no electricity, there’s no water. [But] protest is protest. Comrade John, you know it, needs a political solution, if you know what I mean. So,you cannot divorce that protest from what are the political ideas which drive the protest. What are the solutions? Yeah. So I think that’s where we’re being stuck.

Trevor Ngwane
Now, maybe in some unions there’s this, what we call movementism, or it is just a movement. “We don’t want political parties, whatever, or Workers Party. No, we just want…, we must fight on the ground.” You know, which it’s got something, but no amount of militancy is going to answer by itself the political question. No, it can’t. You know what I mean? We saw this in 2020, or 2023, or 22 what I call July days. There was this rioting. Massive looting of shops and factories. 300 people died. You know what I mean, billions of rands of stolen goods. You know, it all came to naught because there was no political project, or there was noone, noone was able to turn it into something,

John Reimann
What you talked about about continuity and how it’s been broken and doing our best to revive the best traditions of the working class, whether that be in the United States or South Africa, whether it be 1985 and 86 in South Africa, or the 1930s In the United States, to revive those tradition – we can’t revive them, but we can point to them and help people see, because those traditions are not dead completely, right? They might be buried underground, but they’re still there, and they find their way to the surface. For instance, in some of the protests you’re talking about. So there’s that on the one hand, and also making those international connections. There’s those two things. One is trying to, you know, develop that continuity and, well, they’re not separate. Develop that continuity and making those international connections which is part of that content that continuity

Trevor Ngwane
I agree fully. So, for example, even this Trump thing with Ramaphosa – I mean, hit’s of interest to people. In everywhere in the world, you know. So we should be talking to each other, you know, what are the workers in the US – What are the comrades saying the US and we, we share, we share perspectives. And then also, you know, the right wing populist, they will continue unless they find an obstacle, and then also some kind of exchange, you know, these days we’ve got zoom.

Trevor Ngwane
There’s a vacuum, John, you know. It’s just terrible. And also, like I say, with all this propaganda, you know. And so there’s a voice which is missing. And, you know, in politics, you know, there can be no vacuum, so someone plugs it, but, but be quite, be quite open, you know, on this, I think we used to do that in a case with SCC, you know, the working class needs a Workers Party, you Know, because we need an alternative. And my fear is that, you know, if MK [the right wing populist party uMkhonto we Sizwe discussed in the second part of this series], if EFF [ left populist Economic Freedom Fighters, also discussed there] and them, I don’t think that they will take power as themselves. They’ll link up with some other party. They’ll force them to the right or to the center. And they’ll bring their constituents. And then our struggle is postponed, liberation postponed for another 10, 20, years, John.

Trevor Ngwane
Trumpism – Their strategy is divide and rule. So South Africa will go kiss his ass.. The next day is Lesotho, the next day is UK. But there’s workers on the ground. We can unite and speak with one voice and say, “No!” I think that’s that’s my message. Lastly, socialism is is not only possible. It has to happen, you know. So I’m completely against this idea that there’s no alternative to capitalism, or that “”if you disrupt economies in favor of building an alternative, [that] doesn’t make sense.” but it must not be socialism from above. We’ve seen the history. It must be from below.

Also see part 1 of this interview “Africa is not for sale“, and part 2, “Right and left wing populism in South Africa.”

Note: this transcript has been slightly modified for clarity and the interview has been edited for length.