BEWARE FALLING BRICS: SOUTH AFRICA AND CHINA

International crisis of capitalism

Class nature of the state Permanent Revolution vs. theory of stages Stalinism, Menshevism, neo-colonial bourgeois nationalism

Revolutionary Marxism & Internationalism

CONTRADICTIONS OF CAPITALISM
Wealth of South Africa
41% of the worlds gold 73% of the chromium

Poverty of the masses

14 million live from government subsidy 40% of the population live on $2.50 per day Strikers demand R12,500 about $1500 a month

90% of the manganese

90% of the platinum

Marikana Massacre
The massacre exposed the reactionary ANC regime as a client state of imperialism. The ANC attempts to defuse a mass workers uprising By building a new strategic partnership with China ANC hopes this produces win-win deals to develop its economy and reap the wealth produced.

Following the massacre fed up with the unfulfilled promises of the bourgeois democratic revolution the working class spread a strike wave across the mining sector and transportation sector

GLOBAL CRISIS OF CAPITALISM

We are five years into a major structural crisis of global capitalism that hit in mid 07.

It was triggered by crisis of falling profits endemic to capitalism

Subprime crisis was a surface effect. Underlying cause was failure to invest in production--finance capital turned to speculation in financial instruments

Financialization is finance capital* being driven out of the productive circuit by the tendency for the rate of profit to fall.
Trillions in overproduced surplus capital speculate in existing commodities creating a bubble of fictitious capital.
*(the fusion of industrial and banking capital)

THE BUBBLE MUST BE POPPED

For the ruling class the crisis will only be resolved in their favor, when they have devalued sufficient surplus capital to enable profits to be restored.

The logic of a structural crisis, as the solution to falling profits is to restructure or devalue capital both constant (plant and raw materials) and variable capital (wages) - by concentrating and centralizing capital as the weak firms go bankrupt and strong firms buy up their cheap assets.
During devaluation production stagnates the labor cost is driven down below the level of reproduction, austerity is imposed, programs are gutted the feeble, the weak, those in need are abandoned by the state and left to their own resources

RESOLUTION OF CRISIS LEADS TO CLASS WAR & INTER-IMPERIALIST RIVALRY

Despite the biggest rescue of capital by the state in history the crisis is not over

Capital still faces trillions of bad debts it needs to devalue or destroyed

Super-Exploitation restores profitability by driving down the social wage and average cost of labor power, by inflation & quantitative easing, Workers opposition to these austerity measures (when not contained by SD & Stalinism) is met head on by state and fascist reaction In South Africa, as elsewhere--for workers to live they must unite to overthrow capitalism!

CONSEQUENCE OF CAPITALIST CRISIS

Survival of the fittest monopoly firms In the epoch of imperialism this means a growing rivalry between imperialist powers to re-divide the world This rivalry takes economic form in trade rivalry as each state attempts to block imports but increase exports Ultimately the rivalry can only be resolved by imperialist war and international class war. Today rivalry is most intense between the US led bloc and the China bloc This growing antagonism gives concrete expression to the dominant aspects of the epoch of imperialism, of crises, wars and revolutions. This structural crisis means we have to choose, once again, between socialism or barbarism . we are already well down the road to barbarism.

IMPERIALIST EXPLOITATION
Imperialism is based on unequal exchange where normal profits/ surplus-value (SV) are inflated into super profits by extracting super-value. (SVi) The two main mechanisms are: use a reserve army of labor to force de-valuation of wages below the level of reproduction undervaluing the price of the commodities produced and exported via transfer pricing This means that on top of normal capitalist profits , imperialist corporations steal super-profits .

ANC/SACP POLICY TOWARD IMPERIALISM

The ANC/SACP policy of the bourgeois national revolution uses the state to redistribute surplus value towards the gradual social ownership of the means of production The ANC/SACP policy is that the national revolution empowers workers governments to tax or regulate imperialism to reduce or eliminate unequal exchange as the basis of super-profits.

There have been ongoing attempts to achieve this using a number of rules including attempts to stop transfer pricing.
Growing consensus is these attempts have failed

SA is among the most super-exploited semi-colonies on earth

STALINISM IN AFRICA ALONG SIDE IMPERIALISM

Fulfilling Stalins commitments, made at Yalta and Potsdam and later recommitted to as peaceful co-existence, the Stalinist bureaucracy's foreign policy sought to limit national liberation wars to the bourgeois democratic stage They advocated and helped set up cross class governments with the new native bourgeoisie, which despite Pan Africanist rhetoric most often acts as minor partners-as an obsequious comprador bourgeoisies, serving the national wealth up to the parasitic imperialist monopolies. Angola the masses defeated the colonialist Portuguese army then with Cuban assistance international Stalinism limited the revolution to the democratic tasks South African masses defeated apartheid but Stalinism implemented conciliation between imperialism, the white bourgeoisie and the newly created black bourgeoisie

ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF STALINIST THEORY OF PROGRESSIVE NATIONAL REVOLUTION

ANC/SACP/COSATU presides over the return of EU and US multinationals into the mining industry The lions share of value from mining still flows to the mining multinationals Anglo-American, Lonmin, Glencore etc.

Imperialist super-exploitation of low wages (reflected in the poverty living standards of workers) and transfer pricing keep the rate of super-profits for imperialism massive.
In practice, for 18 years the ANC has proven the SACP theory of progressive national revolution is a fraud.

Materialist basis for the abandonment of the freedom charter

The minority share that came to the regime via royalties, taxes and minority shareholdings such as the Black Business Empowerment (BEES) did not benefit the mass of South Africans, but went into the pockets of a newly emerging Black bourgeoisie. The ANC, exposed for its failed national revolution, is clearly the party of a new Black national bourgeoisie presiding over the super-exploitation of the South African working class.

NUM founder, ex general secretary of the ANC & now multi-millionaire and member of the Lonmin board Cyril Ramaphosa

THE FORMATION OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN BLACK COMPRADOR BOURGEOIS

BLACK ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT (BEE) Some ANC, SACP and COSATU leaders are transformed into multi-millionaires exploiting the very workers they claimed to represent Front men for imperialism claw their way up via the favoritism of crony capitalism enjoying the fruits from state contracts, state owned enterprises etc. Other ANC leaders like Tokyo Sexwale, minister of human settlements, founded Mvelaphanda Holdings the third largest diamond mining company and Cyril Ramaphosa make up the new Black comprador bourgeoisie

ANC SERVING IMPERIALISM

The ANC Tripartite regime has trapped SA into dependency on Western imperialist super-exploitation
Today we see a rising mass dissatisfaction with the successive leadership of the ANC, its statified union Congress, COSATU, and of its political leadership in the SACP. The miners of Marikana are but the first wave of mass insurrection that rejects the ANC regime and its state force and is embarking on the road to workers power!

TRADE UNIONS INTEGRATED WITH THE CAPITALIST STATE

Aug 15th, one day prior to the massacre National Union of Miners president Senzeni Zokwana (new national chairman of the SACP) came to the strike. He stayed behind the police line and addressed the workers from the loud speakers The strikers refused to listen and invited him to come speak directly with him He fled in fear and humiliation the next day 34 are murdered. After the massacre Zokwana denounced the slaughter as, a barbaric act co-ordinated and deliberately organized by the AMCU leaders . calling for their arrest!

TROTSKY ON THE TRADE UNIONS

trade unions, as witnessed by all past historical experience, including the fresh experience of the anarcho-syndicalists unions in Spain, developed powerful tendencies toward compromise with the bourgeois-democratic regime. In periods of acute class struggle, the leading bodies of the trade unions aim to become masters of the mass movement in order to render it harmless. (1938 Transitional Program) The trade unions of our time can either serve as secondary instruments of imperialist capitalism for the subordination and disciplining of workers and for obstructing the revolution, or on the contrary, the trade unions, can become the instruments of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat. (1940 Discussion with Cannon)

WHAT IS BEHIND THE MARIKANA MASSACRE?

Is this the re-opening of the democratic revolution that has the potential for permanent revolution similar to that of the Arab Spring? Why does the national democratic revolution need re-opening? In 1955 the ANC and SACP joined forces to lead the national democratic revolution to power. The ANC adopted its program on national development, the Freedom Charter, from the Stalinist SACP which held that SA must go through a bourgeois stage of capitalist development to create the pre-conditions for socialism.

STALINIST THEORY OF STAGES UNRAVELS

We trace the Stalinist theory of stages to the Mensheviks position in Russia. Stalin reverted to this theory in 1923 once he was in power in the USSR The democratic revolution would empower the working class to nationalize the means of production to speed up the transition to socialism. This, the workers were told, would be possible if the bourgeois state was under the control of the ANC representing the Black majority working class. The Freedom Charter adopted in 1955 made nationalization of the mines central to its program of national development. Nationalization meant ownership by the bourgeois state governed by the ANC, not the social ownership of the working class in a socialist workers state. The working people would delegate this task to the ANC and not have direct control over its implementation.

THE FREEDOM CHARTER

Adopted in 1955 this bourgeois democratic program promised: All bodies of minority rule, advisory board, councils and authorities shall be replaced by democratic organs of self government The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole Land to be re-divided amongst those who work it to abolish famine and hunger All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions. Demolition of Slums provide affordable quality housing, plentiful food availability, preventive and free medical care Marxists defend and advance all reforms and democratic gains but we do not confuse the democratic tasks of the unfinished bourgeois revolution with the tasks and program of the proletarian revolution.

THE PROGRAM OF NATIONALIZATION

Big Bourgeoisie program
Allows for nationalization with compensation Under the control of the bourgeois state State capitalist mechanism to protect big capital in crisis i.e. Chavez nationalize oil with compensation run under capitalist state control. Obama GM & Banks

Neo-Colonial or Petty Bourgeois program

Working Class Historic Program

Allows for nationalization

Either with or without compensation to the big shareholders Run under capitalist government control State Capitalist accumulation for social distribution or state stabilization

Nationalization without compensation to the big shareholders

Occupation and workers selfmanagement over of the means of production Run under an economic plan derived by councils of workers deputies chosen by the workers at the point of production who maintain the right of immediate recall !

THE POST SOVIET MODEL LEADS TO ABANDONING THE FREEDOM CHARTER

When the ANC came to power in 1994 the SACP program of nationalization was already realized in the Soviet Union by its return to state capitalism.

The Stalinist policy of Perestroika and Glasnost had opened the road to the restoration of the capitalist market.
Yeltsin in 1992 defeated any resistance to capitalist restoration forcing privatization of state property and the remaining State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to be subject to the law of value in the global capitalist market. This translated globally as a retreat from not only workers property but from bourgeois nationalization to the mixed economy dressed up sometimes as market socialism.

Thus when the ANC came to power in 1994 the Stalinist world was already rejecting nationalization as the preferred road to socialism.

SAS DEMOCRATIC BOURGEOIS NATIONAL REVOLUTION DEFORMED AT BIRTH

Thus the bourgeois national revolution in SA was deformed at birth as part of a historic defeat of the world working class that brought the downfall of the degenerate workers states including the Soviet Union, destroying workers property, the main gain of the October 1917 Revolution." Coming to power in 1994 the ANC junked the Freedom Charter for a developmental state model of market socialism where the state acts to regulates the market to meet the goals of socialism. Today the ANC leadership still rules out nationalization of the mining companies assets as too costly and politically destabilizing. It says nationalization of the assets of listed mining corporations would cost $1 Trillion, bankrupt the country, leaving it at the mercy of a Structural Adjustment Program. It therefore continues to opt for a range of taxes, royalties and other valuesharing measures to implement its particular brand of national development.

CLASS NATURE OF THE SA STATE

Today the Popular Front Tripartite Alliance of the ANC, SACP and COSATU administer a neo-apartheid capitalist state in the semicolony of South Africa A capitalist state reserves to itself the sole monopoly of violence to discipline the workers and protect that parasitic classes--both the national and imperialist bourgeoisie. i.e. in addition to the Marikana massacre on Oct 2nd 2,000 miners were evicted from company housing at Gold Fields mine for striking is nothing else but a gathering that administers the common business of the whole bourgeois class communist manifesto

CLASS NATURE OF THE STATE

The Capitalist State
Marxism define a capitalist state as one in which the armed bodies of men defending capitalist property relations (the law of value,) dominate and maintain capitalist social relations When the workers strike the government sends bodies of armed men defending capitalist property relations to shoot down the workers, evict them, beat them etc.

The healthy Workers State

Historical materialism defines a healthy workers state as one where the armed bodies of men defend proletarian property relations The plan dominates replacing the law of value (lov) A monopoly of foreign trade is established to secure the plan Workers self management is established at the shop floor and recallable workers deputies are chosen to legislate & execute the plan

THEORY OF PERMANENT REVOLUTION

Postulates that the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution (national independence and unity, land reform, democracy, bourgeois liberties) could not be carried out by the native bourgeoisie in Russia, China or the semicolonies. The bourgeoisie in these countries are too weak to accomplish these tasks in the face of imperialism and that those tasks (accomplished in the classic bourgeois revolutions USA, UK, France, Germany) and that those tasks would fall to the working class and be addressed only by the victorious proletarian revolution. The Menshevik two stage theory proved disastrous in front of the Kornilov counter-revolution. The tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution fell upon the working class which took them up through the proletarian revolution three months after the assault by Kornilov. Permanent Revolution was validated in the victory of the three year civil war, which pitted class against class, reveling the monarchists and bourgeoisies joint affinity for imperialism.

RENEGADE TROTSKYISTS FORGET THE FIRST LESSON OF MARXISM: CLASS INDEPENDENCE

The American SWP abandoned the theory of Permanent Revolution in the 1985 Article The Coming Revolution in South Africa. Joining, at least in the realm of theory, the SACP in calling for the national democratic revolution. Mandela writings and pro ANC literature l found its way along side Castro and Guevara replacing Trotskys Permanent Revolution on the shelves of the SWP bookstores. Like many of the Third Worldists, Pan Africanists, Castroists and Stalinists many self proclaimed Trotskyists could not resist the pressure to capitulate to imperialism joining or voting for the Popular Front in 1994 The Marxist Workers Tendency, the Socialist Group, the Comrades for a Workers Government, the Workers International League all abandoned class independence joining or voting for the ANC

GLOBAL CRISIS DIRECTS THE CAPITALIST ANC TO ATTACK THE WORKING CLASS
The 52nd ANC national conference outlines a new plan for national development based on a greater share of the resource rent These proposals are overwhelmed by the global crisis and falling demand for minerals Putting pressure on the regime to contain and discipline mine workers to drive down labor and production costs and restore levels of super-profits. Creating waves of dissatisfaction with the NUM, rank and file mobilizations, wildcat strikes and the series of disputes that ultimately led to the Marikana Massacre. The ANC response to the massacre has been to resort to police suppression of the militants trying to defeat and contain the miners strike The ANC seeks to control the moderates by holding a public inquiry and promising major economic reforms.

ANC REFORMS SERVE IMPERIALISM NOT THE WORKING CLASS

These reforms amount to promises to tax the mining super-profits via tougher Resource Rent Tax (RTT) that will create a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) The SWF is to invest in national and economic social development. This conception of national development is tied to SAs membership of the BRICS led by China . It is being promoted as an attempt to reduce SAs dependence on Western imperialism by collaborating with the market socialist giant whose developmental model can be copied. Instead of Western imperialist exploitation the ANC sees China as an alternative economic power with which it can enter a win-win partnership based on equal exchange.

FOLLOWING CHINAS PATH IS IT POSSIBLE?

The SIMS plans launched in March 2012 the ANC proposes that a SWF funded by the 50% RRT can develop upstream in energy (power and infrastructure) and downstream, manufacturing, education, housing etc. just as China has. The plan is to build Pilot Beneficent Hubs based on the Chinese SEZs Allow new investment, technology etc.

Drive up the value chain to add-value and fund jobs and rising living standards.
This, they say will allow SA to follow Chinas path to national development overcoming the barriers of super-exploitation, unemployment and poverty.

MALEMBA REJECTS THE RRT TAX AS A HALF TAX

Julius Malema, the expelled ANC Youth League leader, and his faction want to replace the leadership of the ANC and its policy of taxing profits. His factions main demand is nationalization without compensation. Malema is trying to contain the political radicalization of workers to rescue the ANC and the Tripartite Alliance by promising a more radical reform than the current leadership.
Malema is popular with the striking miners who support more militant moves to share the wealth. Many are now breaking with the NUM and Cosatu and calling for directly negotiated share of the profits.

 This is not a nationalisation from below based on workers occupation and workers control!

MELEMBAS NATIONALIZATION A RADICAL-BOURGEOIS PROGRAM

Nationalisation without compensation is radical/democratic & bourgeois policy

Melembas Nationalisation if undertaken by the ANC would be a bourgeois nationalisation. The process will be led by the Tripartite Alliance of the ANC, Cosatu and SACP in which a bourgeois state is the agent of national capitalist development continuing to act as a junior partner of imperialism. Malema is unlikely to win a majority at the ANC Congress for nationalisation as a panacea, because the ANC leadership is confident its reforms will be bankrolled by China. This time round the global crisis which has now burst to the surface at Marikana and spreading to all the mines is pushing the ANC leadership to reinvent itself by modelling SA development on Chinas market socialism.

ANC PLANS FOR DEVELOPMENT THROUGH EQUITABLE TRADE WITH CHINA

The ANC wants SA to take-off raising living standards like China and the other BRICS.
This financial cooperation agreement is between development banks and the specific projects in which they are going to invest, they have to identify these projects, said, Kgalema Motlanthe South Africas deputy president, on a three-day trip to China, was further quoted by Reuters as saying. To that end, the difference is, instead of just exporting these minerals as raw materials, there will bevalue add to create jobs on both sides,. the new investments from China will be centred on geology and mineral resources as well as on financial cooperation between the Development Bank of South Africa and China Development Bank.

The deals are meant to strike a healthy balance in trade volume between the two countries.

ANC ASSURES WORKERS OF CHINAS HONORABLE INTENTIONS

A win-win deal. China may be investing in the old imperialist ventures of energy, minerals and banking. But it wont be extracting super-profits! Or at least the super-profits will be divided equally hence win-win for both Chinese and South African bourgeoisie!

A delegation from the province of Gauteng visited China to sign a deal for infrastructure projects. Premier Nomvula Mokonyane said, "Our people's lives will improve because after this partnership is sealed, we will see a massive roll-out of infrastructure projects. Alreadywe have a number of flagship projects in the pipeline including the construction of the Tshwane International Conference Center and Rainbow Junction, among others," said Ramokgopa.

CAN SA DEVELOP LIKE CHINA?

The global crisis, the slump in demand for minerals as well as the hardship facing workers that led to Marikana, may speed up the China connection. China continues to keep the economies of the BRICS steaming along so long as its own economy is still growing rapidly. Yet today there is a slowdown from 8% to 7%. Still booming in comparison to western imperialist states. China appears different from the established imperialist powers as it continues to keep the world economy from slumping into deep depression. Is Chinese investment an alternative to imperialist super-exploitation? Can it sustain the world economy and in particular the BRICS? Will South Africa be able to attract more trade and investment out of China, and also increase its share of the rent from mineral extraction? And will he Chinese model of development reproduce in SA an increase in added value based on transfer of technology and knowledge?

GO OUT EXPORTING THE CHINESE MODEL

Deborah Brautigam blogging at China in Africa: The Real Story sees China as different from the European powers, but still expecting a commercial advantage from investments China is not copying European colonisation which sucks out resources and labour power without concern for upstream or downstream development China sees the benefits in developing Africa after the Chinese model.

Not only is China exporting its model to semi-colonies but since 2000, the policy to Go Out and membership in WTO, it is demonstrating this process of going up the value stream from cheap labour to high tech in its FDI in SA.
Figures show that China has used FDI in semi-colonies like South Africa to launch Go Global. It does not compete directly against the established brands of EU, US and Japanese corporate, but starts cheap or contracts to established brands to develop a competitive product and then develop its own brands globally.

CHINA IN SA

Chinese OFDI to SA took off after 2000

It used SA as a learning arena for the globalisation of its banks and industries. China is not only doing swaps of loans for resources, it is investing in upstream energy and infrastructure, and downstream consumer goods such as domestic appliances, electronics and communications. Adding the FDI estimates suggests that Chinese assets in South Africa in mining alone were probably worth close to US $700 million at end of 2007. Confirming that MOFCOMs figure of US $702 million was reasonably accurate The period since 2000 has seen a major expansion in the Chinese presence in South African mining with the doubling of Sinosteels investment during 2006, and the entry of other mining companies. Several major Chinese corporations have entered the banking and construction sectors. (The Edge Institute report p 18.) Thus Chinas demonstration effect is a major factor in reviving hopes that win-win deals will see South Africa and other African states make the same leap from underdevelopment to development made by China.

CHINA: 21ST CENTURY SOCIALISM OR 21 ST CENTURY IMPERIALISM

On the surface it is easy to see why semi-colonial governments can hope to do win-win deals with China. The Chinese developmental model is regarded widely as a form of market socialism a concept that fits snugly with the central role of the state in ownership and control of African economies expressed in the ideology of the ANC, ZANU PF and other African governments.
All of this hinges on the assumption that China is a new form of economy a hybrid of a socialist state and the capitalist market which is not governed by the laws governing the economies of the other big powers. Thus it appears that China has escaped the trap of Western imperialism and shows the way for the rest of the BRICS and other developing countries to follow the same road.

CHINESE MODEL VS. WEST IMPERIALISM

But on closer analysis, China is not essentially different from Western Imperialist economies as its policies are dictated by the laws of motion of monopoly capital and by the growing rivalry with other imperialist states.
Standard neo-liberal economic theory argues that Chinas Overseas FDI is different from established developed economies as they are not global leaders in any sector. This view is echoed on the left, that China cannot catch up with imperialism because it does not have competitive advantage in any global sector of production. Some argue that this fits with Lenins concept of imperialism where imperialist firms must be world leaders to monopolise a sector of production, e.g. oil, banks, steel, autos etc.

ECONOMIC POWER LEGACY OF DWS

What this theory overlooks is that China with its centralised state capitalist apparatus is able to leverage its 100s of millions of low paid workers to create huge surpluses to catch up with its stagnating rivals. This means that it has a massive accumulated super-profits to buy existing assets or resources and form joint ventures to break into sectors where it seeks to dominate in the future.

In South Africa Chinese FDI is mainly in minerals and financial services. China sought markets for assembled CKD (completely knocked down) goods and offers more competitive, cheaper, brands and services on the basis of technology transfer arising from FDI inside China itself.

IS CHINA SUBJECT TO THE LAWS OF MOTION OF CAPITAL?

China has been able to capitalise on its history as a degenerate workers state to accumulate surplus value rapidly and go out by applying its developmental model in key countries like South Africa. We contend China demonstrated, by its rapid expansion, that it is an emerging imperialist power, it is also proving that it is not immune to the deepening global capitalist crisis and is showing signs of overproduction of capital. This is now becoming evident as Chinas economy is slowing down.

OR IS IT THE GLOBAL MARKETS FAULT?

Perhaps Chinas slowdown is only because it is tied to the global market, and not due to any inherent crisis of overproduction? This is the most common view on the reformist left, a view shared by the ANC and other African regimes. Because the ANC views capitalism as capable of being reformed into socialism by equalising exchange, China is socialist to the extent that it can use Keynesian state deficit spending to compensate for falling trade. But in a capitalist economy state investment in infrastructure will generate stagflation unless that infrastructure contributes to the production of commodities that China can sell in the world market.

LIMITS OF MARKET SOCIALISM

Chinas crisis then, exposes the limits of market socialism as dependent on the underlying laws of global capitalism.

The BRICS look to the China model of state managed development to strengthen trade and investment relations and move toward swap deals where China provides long term loans or infrastructure deals in exchange for resources. Yet the BRICS categorised as emerging markets, hides essential differences behind surface similarities. The essential differences are that Russia and China are imperialist countries and have no interest in developing the other BRICS unless they can reap super-profits. This means that BRICS like South Africa cannot escape the sphere of influence of Chinese and Russian imperialism without a socialist revolution.

RUSSIA AND CHINA DOMINATE THE BRICS

Russia and China are newly emerging imperialist countries having made the transition from DWS back to capitalism. Despite massive problems brought by capitalist restoration, their strong state and relative independence from the imperialists allowed them to escape the fate of the other BRICS which remain trapped in colonial dependence. Russia and China have formed a new imperialist bloc competing with the US led bloc by creating its own sphere of influence (SOI) in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This SOI now includes the other BRICS (Brazil, India and South Africa) as well as other intermediate states such as Iran, Venezuela etc. Inevitably this SOI is one in which Russia and China dominate and superexploit their semi-colonial clients. India, Brazil and South Africa are all characterised by the continued dominance of imperialist FDI which limits their ability to develop an independent bourgeoisie and accumulate capital on their own account.

CONTRAST INTERNATIONALISM VS. ARMS PROFITEERING !

ZANU, the repressive capitalist governing party in Zimbabwe, had long been supported by Chinese loans, investments and military grants. The eyes of the Southern African workers were focused on the violence and repression of worker activists during the lead up to the 2008 elections April 2008 Dockworkers at Durban refused Chinese shipments of arms destined for to the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. Thabo Mbekis ANC government gave the ship clearance

The class conscious dock workers turned the ship around!

CONCLUSIONS
The ANC cannot lead South Africa out of imperialist super-exploitation by following Chinas development model.

It has proven not only that the bourgeois democratic revolution cannot be completed by means of a popular front government but it in fact holds back its completion by trapping the working class in a client state of imperialism.
This will prove to be the case with China also. China is not a new form of society that can escape capitalist crisis. It is an emerging imperialist power that is now the main rival of the US bloc in Africa. The ANCs strategic alliance with China will see it staying trapped in semi-colonial super-exploitation and its people trapped in poverty and misery.

FOR WORKING CLASS POWER

The miners of Marikana will not win freedom or economic security without leading a socialist revolution in SA.

For that to happen the workers need their own Revolutionary Party and a program that opens the road to revolution. It is necessary to build a working class movement based on the mines; workers councils in every workplace and township; workers defence militias; for the seizure of power and formation of a Workers and poor farmers Government to expropriate imperialist and capitalist property and plan a socialist economy!
Build a Workers Party that unites the militant vanguard from China the Middle East to the USA! For a new World Party of Socialist Revolution!