The Alliance of Democratic Forces led by the African National Congress (ANC) won the first general election in South African history on April 27, 1994. The Congress won 62.5% of the popular vote, winning the majority of seats in Parliament.

The results of the elections meant the elimination of the apartheid system that had existed in South Africa since 1948 - since the victory of the white Nationalist party in the elections and the system of racial discrimination that had prevailed in South Africa almost since the first settlers led by Jan Fan Riebeek landed in the area of present-day Cape Town in 1652.

Keywords: South Africa, apartheid, political consciousness, ANC, total strategy, Afrikaners, white community, reforms.

In April 1994, for the first time in South African history, an alliance of forces representing the core interests of the black majority came to power.1
To understand the nature of the forces that opposed the democratic movement, it is necessary to analyze the internal contradictions and social structure of the white population, since the struggle between supporters of the "hard" concept of apartheid and supporters of reforms and, accordingly, the social groups behind them, largely determined the political struggle in the country in the 1980s.

THE WHITE COMMUNITY OF SOUTH AFRICA

Contradictions within the white community have existed for a long time. The British traditionally controlled the Cape and Natal provinces. Afrikaners 2 held sway over the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. After the discovery of gold deposits in the Transvaal, the English crown decided to appropriate them.

In the Boer War of 1899-1902, the much more powerful British Empire was victorious. The Afrikaners found themselves in a subordinate position. Although within a few years both large sections of the white community had come to terms with the shared exploitation of the black population of South Africa, the Boers ' deep discontent with their situation persisted, as the country's most lucrative industries - mining and banking - were initially controlled by British capital, while agriculture and manufacturing were largely in the hands of the British government. Afrikaners who needed protectionist measures from the state.

1 The black population refers to Africans, Indians, and so-called "colored people "-descendants of mixed marriages with South - East Asians who were once brought to work on the plantations of the Cape Colony, as well as with the indigenous inhabitants of South Africa-with" bushmen "and"Hottentots".

2 Or Boers-descendants of immigrants from Holland.

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In the 1948 parliamentary elections in South Africa, the Nationalist Party won. She leaned on: 1) the Afrikaner agrarian capital, which was promised state assistance in controlling black labor and pricing; 2) the white workers, who counted on the policy of "reserving professions" directed against black workers; 3) the Afrikaner petty bourgeoisie, which has always been the main support of the Nationalist Party; 4) the Afrikaner financial sector. commercial and industrial non-monopoly capital dissatisfied with its subordinate position.

Afrikaners, having gained political power, began to gain positions in the country's economy. According to Harold Wolpe, by the mid-1970s," a powerful Afrikaner faction of corporate capital had created overlapping links in many sectors of the economy with other factions of capital " (Wolpe, 1988).

The contradictions between the owners of manufacturing enterprises interested in a stable, skilled and relatively well-paid labor force, and those capital sectors that still needed cheap labor, also increased. It should be noted here that the position of agricultural capital in the early 1980s began to weaken due to the penetration of monopolistic relations in agriculture. The number of white farmers decreased from 106 thousand in 1960 to 70 thousand in 1980. [Sisulu, 1987].

The English historian R. Davies identifies the following main characteristics of the ruling classes and their allies.

1) Monopoly capital has strengthened as the leading force of the capitalist class. It reached an extremely high degree of concentration when, by the mid-1980s, 83.1% of the campaigns (about 5,000) listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange were controlled by the four leading monopolies - Anglo-American Corporation (52.5%), Sanlam (10.7%), Southafrican Mutual (8%) and Rembrandt (4.3%) [Political Economy, 1987, p. 92];

2) Inclusion of many Afrikaner companies among the leading monopolies. They continued to be part of the nationalist alliance, but Afrikaner big business was at odds with other forces in the alliance-agrarian capital, the petty bourgeoisie, and white workers;

3) And the Frisian petty bourgeoisie was increasingly integrated into the state bureaucracy. Therefore, maintaining its position depended on maintaining a political system based on a strong State bureaucracy and on particularly favorable conditions for Afrikaners;

4) White workers began to mix into office-management positions. administrative and technical positions. In 1970, such positions were held by 65% of able-bodied whites, compared with 45% in 1946. The number of whites engaged in manual labor decreased from 28% in 1946 to 14% in 1970 [Davies, O'Meara, Dlamini, 1986, p. 495]. These trends continued to increase, and the 1980s were marked by the departure of whites from direct production.

NECESSITY AND NATURE OF REFORMS

The difference in the economic and, consequently, political interests of different groups of the white population played an important role in the division of white unity in the late 1970s, in the development of the government's reform course and in the opposition to this course in the white community. This, in turn, caused inconsistency in the government's policy, in the transition from reforms in the early 1980s to repressions in the middle of the decade, and again to reforms in the early 1990s.

The process of change was largely triggered by a revolt of students in Soweto in 1976-1977, who protested against the transfer of all secondary education from high school to high school.

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English to Afrikaans. It would be an exaggeration to say that this uprising directly affected the white community. Fights between young people and the police took place on the territory of black villages, white suburbs were reliably isolated from them. Nevertheless, the uprising shocked the country, especially resonant were three large strikes of solidarity (with schoolchildren), which showed the growing economic potential of blacks.

The reaction of the white community was mixed. Big business has most thoroughly and quickly understood what is happening and its potential consequences. More far-sighted than the other members of the white community forces alliance, he had made reform proposals even before the uprising. In April 1976, the organ of the Afrikaner Trade Institute, Volkshandel, called for the search for a formula that could grant urban blacks ownership rights in townships in order to "create a core of a black middle class committed to a democratic system based on private property" (Brooks and Brickhill, 1980, p. 368).

In July 1976, the Transvaal Chamber of Industry sent a memorandum to the Prime Minister with strategic proposals aimed at changing the concept of apartheid, namely, turning blacks from temporary to permanent urban residents. To do this, it was proposed, first, to improve housing conditions, the transportation system, public utilities, and the education system; second, to improve working conditions; and third, to grant urban blacks certain, though extremely limited, political rights.

This document emphasized that "the emergence of a middle class with materialistic needs and Western-style ambitions has already occurred in these areas... Only by bringing the most responsible part of the urban blacks to our side will whites in South Africa be able to restrain in the long run the economic and political ambitions of those blacks who succumb to influence from within and outside our borders that is contrary to their own interests" (Brooks and Brickhill, 1980, p. 270). Later, this position became a key one in the new strategy of the ruling group. Big business was far-sighted in its assessment of the threat to the existence of not only apartheid, but also the private enterprise system itself.

However, big business proposals dictated by pragmatism were not supported by the government. And the point here is not in his conservatism, but in the position of other forces that made up his social support. Business proposals were at odds with the interests of white workers in particular. The South African Confederation of Labour, which represented them, at its annual conference in 1978, called for the preservation of a system of job reservations to protect white workers from competition, as well as against joint unions with blacks [To the Point, 12.08.1978].

These initiatives of big business also attracted resistance from the middle and small white bourgeoisie and the influential agricultural capital. Obviously, the pressure of social groups explains the sharp reaction of Prime Minister D. Forster, who stated that "concessions to the ill-considered requests of business organizations would pose a threat to the entire political process" (Brooks and Brickhill, 1980, p. 126).

It would be wrong to say that the reform policy was profoundly alien to the South African Government. Each of the leaders of the Nationalist Party, starting in 1948, introduced something new to the concept of apartheid. However, all this was aimed at strengthening the apartheid system. As noted by Professor of Stellenbosch University S. Terre-Blanche, " The Nationalist Party - and with it South Africa-is trapped in the structures of apartheid. External changes at every stage-after the simple apartheid of Malan and Stridom, the" big " apartheid of Verwoerd, transformed into the pragmatic apartheid of Forster and then into the bureaucratic, "security" apartheid.-

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The cratic "apartheid Bots" did little to change the basic internal structure of apartheid, which perpetuates white privilege and power and black deprivation and anarchy "(Terreblanche, 1988, p. 27).

None of this has led to a split between individual members of the union of forces in the white community. In the end, big business received political stability (if only through repression) and cheap labor from the government. However, a number of measures were taken to explore options for the future strategy. For this purpose, two commissions were created, which became known by the names of their chairmen - Rickert and Wihan.

The idea was to solve the two-pronged problem of improving the efficiency of the economy by removing outdated restrictions and splitting the black population along a new line - between permanent residents of cities and otkhodniks. That is, in addition to the strategy of creating a black bourgeoisie, a line was also developed for the formation of a black working aristocracy. However, the further deterioration of the living conditions of Africans, laid down in the bills put forward earlier by one of the government members, Koornhof, created a breeding ground for the strengthening of the resistance movement.

We also note a few other important circumstances. According to the United Democratic Front (UDF), the country's leading anti - apartheid organization: "Many of President Botha's early initiatives were under the protective umbrella of 'constructive cooperation' - the American concept of exerting pressure on South African governments, but only in a 'constructive', i.e. admonitory form. This provided the white Government of South Africa with much-needed international support, and at the same time required a certain form of behavior. South Africa's regime was supposed to be closer to the model of a "normal" capitalist state - or at least look that way. It was necessary to limit open repression, the visibility and, to a certain extent, the presence of an open democratic discussion, an attempt to portray South African society as being in the process of moving away from apartheid [The Tasks of the Democratic Movement..., 1985, vol. 1, No. 1, p. 19].

As a result, the South African government was forced under external pressure to create the legal political space in which mass democratic organizations could only arise (after a long period of repression).

By the late 1970s, under pressure from the Soweto uprising, as well as large businesses interested in skilled labor, the Government decided to significantly increase spending on education. In the early 1980s, 500,000 black students were enrolled in secondary schools, compared with 25,000 in the 1950s (Wolpe, 1980). This led, firstly, to the fact that in the context of rapidly growing youth activity, schools, colleges and universities became centers of political mobilization. By the mid-1980s, the spontaneous youth movement of the mid-1970s was replaced by large national organizations that became the most active political force of the UDF. Secondly, as the bulk of school leavers joined the ranks of the working class, the black proletariat became more educated, which in the conditions of South Africa raised it to a higher level of political consciousness. The Government's decision to recognize unregistered trade unions created an opportunity for rapid growth in the number of trade unions.

This created the basis for a future alliance of three major forces that would later play a crucial role in ending the apartheid system: community and youth organizations and trade unions.

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THE CONCEPT OF "TOTAL STRATEGY"

The election of Defense Minister Peter Botha as South Africa's Prime Minister in 1978 meant more than a change of leadership. By then, the threat to the apartheid system had become apparent. The old methods of governing the country have become ineffective. Circumstances required the development of new approaches, and they found their expression in the so-called total strategy. It was based on the idea that South Africa was facing an" all-out offensive " by the USSR, so the response strategy should combine tough security measures with reforms aimed at eliminating the causes that gave rise to revolutionary sentiments.

This approach made it possible to combine the interests of the main groups that the new Prime Minister was supposed to "harmonize": the "enlightened" part of the Nationalist Party, big business and the military. Businesses and" enlightened " nationalists got the reforms they had long sought, and the military got the more effective security system they insisted on.

A great influence on the formation of the concept of "total strategy" was exerted by the work of the French General Beaufre "Introduction to Strategy "(1963). It justified the need for a systematic combination of military-police measures with political ones in a single "total strategy" of the struggle "for minds and hearts", as a more effective means of containing the revolutionary movement than repression. social transformation to eliminate the causes of social discontent and protest.

Thus, the concept of reform was initially based not on the recognition of the need to move away from apartheid, but on the desire to preserve white supremacy by more fully linking political and economic measures with the police. The development of this concept was also influenced by the ideas of the American sociologist and political scientist S. Huntington, who proceeded from the experience of transformations in Brazil, controlled by the military [Huntington, 1981, Vol. 8, No. 2]. In his opinion ," reforms from above", namely such reforms were supposed to be carried out by the P. Boty group, are possible if the following conditions are met::

- the level of expectations should not be allowed to exceed the actual achievable results of reforms;

- the reform process should be gradual: it is necessary to take on the solution of one problem and only then move on to the next. At some stage, a qualitative leap is possible, and this is what needs to be done quickly, so as not to allow the right and left opposition to organize;

- reforms should be implemented from a position of strength, with constant military-police control over the situation in the country;

- it is necessary to expand the social base of the government at the expense of those who are in moderate opposition to the regime layers of business, the middle stratum of blacks and other groups.

Four main areas of reform were identified: legalizing black trade unions; recognizing the right of urban blacks to live permanently in cities; adopting a new constitution that would expand the composition of Parliament to include Indians and people of color as "junior partners"; and implementing a new regional development concept based on dividing the country into eight economic regions.

Of particular importance was the recognition of the right of blacks to live permanently in cities. This, in effect, meant acknowledging the failure of one of the cornerstones of apartheid - the bantustanization policy, the failure of the concept of turning black South Africans into "temporary residents" of white cities.

All this inevitably entailed other concessions: the right to acquire property in the cities, to" freely " sell one's own labor force without compulsory labor contracts.

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earlier contracts. But the main concession was to be the right to create local black self-government bodies, which, according to the creators of the "total strategy", meant granting black people political rights.

However, the very idea of black self-government bodies laid the reasons for its subsequent failure: they were transferred to self-sufficiency, which could only lead to an increase in taxes for residents of settlements and an explosion of discontent. Black Africans were not granted political rights nationwide. These rights could still be exercised (and then only to a limited extent) only through bantustans, and the separation of the elite could only occur at the expense of infringing the rights of the rest of the blacks, i.e., due to strict control over movement from bantustans to cities.

The new regional development system was designed to create employment opportunities for Bantustans in or near the borders of the Bantustans themselves, thereby reducing the influx of black Africans into the cities. All of these measures did not address the fundamental foundations of apartheid - the Law on Ethnic Group Distribution, or the Law on Racial Classification. Blacks 'attitude to these reforms was expressed in the popular assessment:" too little and too late." "The maximum that the white minority was willing to sacrifice in the early 1980s was too far from the minimum that the black majority was willing to accept," noted South African scientists M. Phillips and M. Swilling [Swilling and Phillips, 1988, p. 39].

* * *

As a result, none of the elements of the "total offensive" concept worked. The repressions, which particularly intensified in the late 1980s and early 1990s, did not produce the expected results. The government coped quite easily with the "traditional" forms of struggle, since the entire repressive apparatus for decades was adapted to this very thing. But the complex forms of protest-the use of increased economic power by blacks for political purposes, general strikes and consumer boycotts, i.e. the refusal of blacks to produce and consume within the existing socio-economic system, the government could not suppress as effectively.

Attempts to win over a part of the black population failed due to the high level of unity and organization of blacks. The idea of raising the standard of living of some blacks also ended in failure due to the general crisis that the apartheid system was entering by the mid-1980s.

The main weakness of this concept was, according to South African scientists, in the " idealism "of its creators, who assumed that the reform proposal itself could" win the minds and hearts " of the black population. It failed not only because of its "idealism", which did not take into account the real conditions of black life, but also because "it reflected the internal limitations of the overall power structure in South Africa, which these reforms were intended to leave largely intact" (Swilling and Phillips, 1988, p. 40).

By the late 1980s, the white community was even more divided. In it, the polarization of forces began to increase. Along with the" irreconcilables", who demanded not to make any concessions to blacks and to suppress their actions solely by force, the layer of whites who realized the futility of the apartheid regime began to increase. Big business was sensitive to the international economic blockade, which was accompanied by an intensive withdrawal of capital investments from the country.

This complex of factors is combined with the armed struggle waged by the African National Congress, the activities of underground structures of the ANC and amis-

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The lack of legal organizations led to the downfall of the seemingly indestructible apartheid regime.

list of literature

Sisulu M. Nationalization of monopolies and perestroika of the economy / / Report at the I Soviet-South African (ANC) seminar. Moscow, 1987.

Brooks A., Brickhill J. Whirlwind Before the Storm //International Defence and Aid Fundfor Southern Africa. L., 1980.

Davies R., O'Meara D., Dlamini S. The Struggle for South Africa. Zed Books, L., 1986.

Huntington S. Reform and Stability in a Modernising, Multi-ethnic Society. Politikon. Vol. 8, No. 2. Johannesburg, 1981.

Political Economy. South Africa in Crisis. Johannesburg, 1987.

Swilling M., Phillips M. Reform, Security and the Significance of the Municipal Election // Centre for Policy-Studies, Univ. of Witwatersrand. August 1988.

Terreblanche S. The Dream Fades. Leadership. Johannesburg, 1988.

The Tasks of the Democratic Movement in the State of Emergency. Vol. 1, No. 1. Cape Town. 1985.

To the Point. Johannesburg.

Wolpe H. Aspects of the Present Situation in South Africa // Seminar at St Antony's College, Oxford. September 24 - 25, 1988.

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