'Red Books Red Books is now in temporary premises at 183 Pentonville Road, London N.1, and its hours of opening are still 10am to opm, Monaays to saturaays incheste Among recent publications of interest: *Women Under Attack, the latest CIS special crisis report. Up to me usual nigh standard, packed with information about the effect of government policies on women, and debunks the claim of the Labour leadership to be introducing equality for women. Price 45p (plus 9p p&p). *Protestants of Ulster, by Geoff Bell. The first factual analysis of the Ulster Protestants, very well researched and documented by someone born and brought up in Protestant Belfast. Price £2 (plus 17p p&p). *Writings of Leon Trotsky (1929). Covers the development of the forces of the International Left Opposition, the politics of other opposition groupings (Brandlerires. ere. ana various orogrammarc ques tions concerning Stalinism, the nature of the sover umon, tne chinese revomnon etc. Price £2.10 (plus 47p p&p). *Communist Politics in Britain: the CPB from its origins to the second world war, by Hugo Dewar. This account of the early days of the CPGB and its Stal inist degeneration is written by one of the original British Trotskvists. Price £1.80 (plus 17p p&p), The theory of apartheid, which became official State doctrine with the coming to power of the National Party in 1948, is called by its supporters separate development. According to the prophets of apartheid, the world is made up or a system or races cach of which must follow its own development, in agreement with its own des tiny. The racists have elaborated certain norms or development for each or those races, and they must follow them down to the last detail.
The races in South Africa accounted for the following numbers in 1974: 4,200,000 whites, 2,300,000 Coloureds, 700,000 Asians and 17,800,000 Africans. ne wates can De turmer aced nEe two categories: the Afrikaaners, from whom are recruited the dominant elite (they represent 60 per cent of the white population); and the Europeans, mainly of British extraction, whom the Afrikaaners call 'Anglo-Jewish'.
12 Apostles At the top of the Afrikaaner class rests me brocaeroone secret society. witn 7,000 directors of companies, banks and finance houses, this grouping controls the essential mechanisms of economic and political life. The top leadership is held by an all-powerful clique - the "12 Apostles" - which includes the prime minister, John Vorster.
Apartheid is not simply a racial question. In South Africa, some groups of privileged people exert their domination over millions of whites and non whites. But the class division is also marked by a racial division, and very often the latter masks the former.
whites and non-whites has over the years been strengthened by a system of laws governing the most minor details of social life. Besides an enormous army, and a strong police force, there are also paramilitary groups responsible for seeing that these laws are fully respected.
Apartheid is therefore a police system - and also an invisible cancer. In South African society everything is gear ed to reinforcing it, from the education of the white child (who is taught to regard the African with contempt as a sort of domestic animal) to the servility inculcated into the Africans.
The apartheid regime, above all a cations. Apart from the major divisions, single group. Coercive Or COURSE meet this role. Frank Tenaille others have also been introduced so that there are sub-groups according to lang uage, origins, tribal adherence, etc. These divisions have only one purpose: to minimise the numerical inferiority of the whites, wno through this process of division become the most important This allows the whites to appropriate 87 per cent of the land - the parts, of course, which contain the harbours, the majority of fertile land, and all the mineral and agricultural wealth. All this for only 17 per cent of the people! The rest of the population is concentrated in bantustans' - there are eight reserves each further divided in sevenal parts, An enormous apparatus exists to enforce this coercive system. Brutal repres sion is an everyday reality: tortures arbitrary arrests, censorship, exile, beatings for minor offences, concentration camps, hangings. And the defence budget is constantly on the increase in order to denying its strength!
SELF-DEFENCE For revolutionaries, the question of armed self-defence, the creation of workers' militias, and the slogans to mobilise the masses against the racist state must become the central thrust of their line. The question of arming the militias also poses the question of calling for arms from the Angolans and Mozambican regimes: a demand that can be a litmus test of their, commitment to the southern African revolution Moreover, in spite of any differences we may have with the ANC and other organisations of the left, we must demand the right to form political parties, the right to organise and meet, the right of independent trade unions, and the immediate release of all political prisoners. And centrally posed must be the question of building the necessary revolutionar leadership capable of leading the struggles of the South African masses to victory • - victory of the socialist revolution JULIUS KARANJA
Italy was in crisis. It has voted. But the crisis continues. Must there be a new vote? This is the question every. one is asking after the results of the elections, which have only confirmed the growing strength of the workers movement, and the inability of the bourgeoisie to escape the impasse through its normal trick of using the existing institutions. ruling class becomes reconciled to sharing power with the CP, while hoping fervently that the latter shows itself capable of bringing under control a working class movement which isn't likely to remain with its arms folded for long.
At the present time, the workers have no other solution but to mobilise and engage in struggle for the establishment of a CP-SP government ex