Pretoria, 28 March 1966
Born in April 1908, Bram (Abram) Fischer was the son of a Judge President of the Orange Free State, grandson of a Prime Minister of the Orange River Colony. A Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, on qualifying as a barrister he practised in Johannesburg where he was elected to the Bar Council and for some years was its chairman. A Queen's Counsel, he led the defence in a number of political trials, including the Treason Trial of 1956-1960 and the Rivonia Trial in 1963-4. In September 1964 he was arrested and charged under the Suppression of Communism Act. Briefly granted bail to argue a case before the Privy Council in London, he returned to South Africa to stand trial. On 25 January 1965 he went underground to continue the struggle. After nearly a year of evading the wide spread police net, in November he was captured and brought to trial under the Sabotage Act and the Suppression of Communism Act.
In Pretoria, on 28 March 1966, he told the court:
"I am on trial for my political beliefs and for the conduct to which those beliefs drove me. Whatever labels may be attached to the fifteen charges brought against me, they all arise from my having been a member of the Communist Party and from my activities as a member. I engaged upon those activities because I believed that, in the dangerous circumstances which have been created in South Africa, it was my duty to do so.
When a man is on trial for his political beliefs and actions, two courses are open to him. He can either confess to his transgressions and plead for mercy or he can justify his beliefs and explain why he acted as he did. Were I to ask forgiveness today I would betray my cause. That course is not open to me. I believe that what I did was right....
My belief, moreover, is one reason why I have pleaded not guilty to all the charges brought against me. Though I shall deny a number of important allegations made, this Court is aware of the fact that there is much in the State case which has not been contested. Yet, if I am to explain my motives and my actions as clearly as I am able, then this Court was entitled to have had before it the witnesses who testified in chief and under cross-examination against me. Some of these, I believe, were fine and loyal persons who have now turned traitors to their cause and to their country because of the methods used against them by the State--vicious and inhuman methods. Their evidence may, therefore, in important respects be unreliable.
There is another and more compelling reason for my plea and why I persist in it. I accept the general rule that for the protection of a society laws should be obeyed. But when laws themselves become immoral and require the citizen to take part in an organised system of oppression--if only by his silence or apathy --then I believe that a higher duty arises. This compels one to refuse to recognise such laws. The laws under which I am being prosecuted were enacted by a wholly unrepresentative body, a body in which three-quarters of the people of this country have no voice whatever. These laws were enacted, not to prevent the spread of communism, but for the purpose of silencing the opposition of the large majority of our citizens to a Government intent upon depriving them, solely on account of their colour, of the most elementary human rights: of the right to freedom and happiness, the right to live together with their families wherever they might choose, to earn their livelihoods to the best of their abilities, to rear and educate their children in a civilised fashion, to take part in the administration of their country and obtain a fair share of the wealth they produce; in short, to live as human beings....
I hold and have for many years held the view that politics can only be properly understood and that our immediate political problems can only be satisfactorily solved without violence and civil war by the application of that scientific system of political knowledge known as Marxism....
When I consider what it was that moved me to join the Communist Party, I have to cast my mind back for more than a quarter of a century to try and ascertain what precisely my motives at that time were.... In my mind there remain two clear reasons.... The one is the glaring injustice which exists and has existed for a long time in South African society, the other, a gradual realisation as I became more and more deeply involved with the Congress Movement of those years, that is, the movement for freedom and equal human rights for all, that it was always members of the Communist Party who seemed prepared, regardless of cost, to sacrifice most; to give of the best, to face the greatest dangers, in the struggle against poverty and discrimination.
The glaring injustice is there for all who are not blinded by prejudice to see.
This is not even a question of the degree of humiliation or poverty or misery imposed by discrimination on one section of the community. Hence, it cannot be justified by comparing non-white standards of living or education in South Africa with those in other parts of the continent. It is simply and plainly that discrimination should be imposed as a matter of deliberate policy solely because of the colour which a man's skin happens to be, irrespective of his merits as a man, a worker, a thinker, a father or a friend.
Yet the injustice of the system does not in itself explain my conduct. All white South Africans can see it. The vast majority of them remain unmoved and unaffected. They are either oblivious to it or, despite all its cruelty, condone it on the assumption, whether admitted or not, that the non-white of this country is an inferior being with ideals, hopes, loves and passions which are different from ours. Hence the further tacit or open assumption that he need not be treated as a complete human being, that is, that it is not 'unfair' to make him carry a pass, to prevent him from owning land, deprivations which if applied to whites, would horrify all and cause a revolution overnight.
Though nearly forty years have passed, I can remember vividly the experience which brought home to me exactly what this 'white' attitude is and also how artificial and unreal it is. Like many young Afrikaners I grew up on a farm. Between the ages of eight and twelve my daily companions were two young Africans of my own age. I can still remember their names. For four years we were, when I was not at school, always in each other's company. We roamed the farm together, we hunted and played together, we modelled clay oxen and swam. And never can I remember that the colour of our skins affected our fun, or our quarrels or our close friendship in any way.
Then my family moved to town and I moved back to the normal white South African mode of life where the only relationship with Africans was that of master to servant. I finished my schooling and went to University. There one of my first interests became a study of the theory of segregation, then beginning to blossom. This seemed to me to provide the solution to South Africa's problems and I became an earnest believer in it. A year later to help in a small way to put this theory into practice, because I do not believe that theory and practice can or should be separated, I joined the Bloemfontein Joint Council of Europeans and Africans, a body devoted largely to trying to induce various authorities to provide proper (and separate) amenities for Africans. I arrived for my first meeting with other newcomers. I found myself being introduced to leading members of the African community. I found I had to shake hands with them. This, I found required an enormous effort of will on my part. Could I really, as a white adult touch the hand of a black man in friendship ?
That night I spent many hours in thought trying to account for my strange revulsion when I remembered I had never had any such feelings towards my boy hood friends. What became abundantly clear was that it was I and not the black man who had changed; that despite my growing interest in him, I had developed an antagonism for which I could find no rational basis whatsoever....
The result of all this was that in that and in succeeding years when some of us ran literacy classes in the old Waaihoek location at Bloemfontein, I came to understand that colour prejudice was a wholly irrational phenomenon and that true human friendship could extend across the colour bar once the initial prejudice was overcome. And that I think was lesson No. 1 on my way to the Communist Party which has always refused to accept any colour bar and has always stood firm on the belief, itself 2,000 years old, of the eventual brother hood of all men.
The other reason for my attraction to the Communist Party, the willingness to sacrifice, was a matter of personal observation.... The Communist Party had already for two decades stood avowedly and unconditionally for political rights for non-whites and its white members were, save for a handful of courageous individuals, the only whites who showed complete disregard for the hatred which this attitude attracted from their fellow white South Africans. These members, I found, were whites who could have taken full advantage of all the privileges open to them and their families because of their colour, who could have obtained lucrative employment and social position, but who instead were prepared for the sake of their consciences, to perform the most menial and unpopular work at little or sometimes no remuneration.... But apart from the example of the white members, it was always the communists of all races who were at all times pre pared to give of their time and their energy and such means as they had, to help those in need and those most deeply affected by discrimination; . . . who helped with night schools and feeding schemes, who assisted trade unions fighting desperately to preserve standards of living and who threw themselves into the work of the national movements. It was African communists who constantly risked arrest or the loss of their jobs or even their homes in locations, in order to gain or retain some rights....
Why I continued
But I have to tell this Court not only why I joined the Communist Party when it was a legal party--when at times it had representatives in Parliament, the Cape Provincial Council and the City Council of Johannesburg. I must also explain why I continued to be a member after it was declared illegal. This involves what I believe, on the one hand, to be the gravely dangerous situation which has been created in South Africa from about 1950 onwards and, on the other, the vital contribution which socialist thought can make towards its solution. I shall start with the latter....
I want to refer to a few well-recognised principles which demonstrate the nature of the extremely dangerous situation into which South Africa is being led, by those who choose to ignore these principles, and which also demonstrate the desperate urgency for reversing this direction. I should add that most of the Marxist principles to which I shall refer are today accepted by many historians and economists who are by no means themselves Marxists.
It is clear for instance that during the course of its development, human society assumes various forms. There is a primitive kind of communism found in early stages, best illustrated today by the Bushman society still in existence in parts of South Africa. There have been slave-owning societies and feudal societies. There is capitalism and socialism, and each of these types of society develops its own characteristic form of government, of political control....
(The Marxist) approach explains in rational terms why at different times in man's history, different economic and political forms of society have existed. It also explains why one type of society must of necessity give way to a new and higher form. History therefore becomes something which can be rationally understood and explained. It ceases to be a meaningless agglomeration of events or a mere account of great men wandering in haphazard fashion across its stage. Similarly, modern society itself assumes a meaning as well. It has not appeared on the scene by mere chance; it is not final or immutable and in its South African form it contains its own contradictions which must irresistibly lead to its change.
This is part of Marxist theory and the first point therefore which I seek to make is that Marxism is not something evil or violent or subversive. It is true that propaganda against it (the Communist Party in South Africa) has in recent times been unbridled.... It is also true that for sixteen years now its principles have been outlawed, and that prejudiced propaganda has made it almost impossible for our people to give unbiased thought to those principles which most closely affect their future. They do not even study what the people they choose to look upon as enemies, are thinking. In fact they have no idea what socialism means and the tragic stage has been reached where the word 'communism' evokes nothing but unthinking and irrational hatred. But this does not alter the character nor the accuracy of the Marxist view of South African society nor does it alter the fact that socialism has already been adopted by fourteen States with a population of over 1,000 million people and is accepted as the future form of society by many other millions in all parts of the world. What it does do is to throw into high relief the absurdity of legislation which seeks to abolish a scientific approach to history, which as I shall show, has so much to contribute to the solution of our problems. One should not forget either that this reaction cannot abolish those four years when the Soviet State, then the only socialist State, stood as one of the main bastions between civilisation and the Nazi armies....
I have not said anything about capitalism as yet. Its characteristic features are displayed in South Africa. Hence I ask the Court to look at it in its South African context. Before I do so, I want to emphasise two relevant matters:
(a) The political changes I have referred to occur when the outmoded political form ceases to serve the needs of the people who live under the new circumstances brought about by the development of new economic methods. Where the old forms are at their weakest, the change is most likely to occur first and when it comes it is irresistible. The clock of history can never be set back. Once the economic changes have occurred, the political changes are bound to follow.
(b) In fact, therefore, the sole question is whether, when they occur, the political changes will be effected by peaceful means or by violence, and this depends in essence upon the balance of forces at the time when the changes come and on the degree to which people understand the need for political change.
South Africa today is a clear example of a society in which the political forms do not serve the needs of most of the people. The chief features of capitalism as we know it here are clear:
(a) The means of production are owned by a relatively small handful of people. This ownership is becoming more and more concentrated. I am referring of course, to the ownership of factories, mines and land used for productive purposes.
(b) The overwhelming majority of men and women in the country own no means of production and can exist only by selling their labour power.
(c) Production of commodities is undertaken solely for the purpose of making a profit and for no other. This is not due to any particular trait of avarice in mankind. It is inherent in the system, for profit is its life blood. If profit disappears, as it does periodically, the system falters or even comes to a stand still as it did in the 1930s.
(d) Moreover, the existence of the system depends on competition for markets and raw materials and cheap labour. Since large-scale production and up-to-date methods of production which are constantly being improved, reduce costs, the inner motive force of the system is constantly driving it to form larger and larger production units and to an ever more intense search for markets.
It is precisely these characteristics of capitalism which lead to imperialism and which led to the scramble for Africa during the last century and to the division of the world into the colonies of the Imperial States.
All recognise these facts. What everyone tries to forget or simply overlooks is that for the vast majority of men the system is based upon fear, fear of unemployment and poverty. This is so in the older industrial countries. It is more particularly so in the colonies and ex-colonies, and in South Africa it is a fear which is accentuated by the colour bar. At heart the problem is an economic one which becomes only too apparent in South Africa when one takes note of the reactions which, even in a period of apparent prosperity, follow any attempt to permit non-whites to perform skilled work. In the back of every white man's mind lurks the fear of losing his job. This fear is always with the white man in this country, be he miner or bricklayer, steelworker or bus driver.
For the non-white the position is intolerable. He knows he will always be the first to suffer loss of employment. He realises that so little concern is shown for him that in South Africa the number of unemployed Africans is never even counted or known.
Now it is the fear, bred by this system, which is the fertile soil for producing racialism and intolerance. It was a similar fear which in Europe enabled Hitler to propagate his monstrous theory of race superiority which led to the extermination of five million Jews in Germany. It is this fear which provides scope for the ready acceptance by whites in South Africa of many distorted ideas: that Africans are not civilised; that they cannot become so for many generations; that they are not our fellow-citizens but really our enemies, and hence must be ruled by extreme police state methods and must be prevented from having any organisations of their own; that their voice should be heard only through mouthpieces selected by our all-white Government; that their leaders should be kept permanently on Robben Island....
I am charged with performing acts calculated to further the objects of communism, to wit, the establishment in South Africa of a despotic system of government based on the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is a gross misstatement of my aims and those of my Party. We have never aimed at a despotic system of government. Nor were any efforts ever directed to establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat in this country. It is necessary therefore for me to explain what we have worked for....
We have never put forward socialism as our immediate solution. What we have said is that immediate dangers can be avoided by what we always refer to as a national democratic revolution, that is by bringing our State at this stage into line with the needs of today, by abolishing discrimination, extending political rights and then allowing our peoples to settle their own future. This is fully demonstrated by our Programme which right at the outset says:
'As its immediate and foremost task, the South African Communist Party works for a united front of national liberation. It strives to unite all sections and classes of oppressed and democratic people for a national democratic revolution to destroy white domination. The main content of this revolution will be the national liberation of the African people; carried to its fulfilment, this revolution will at the same time put an end to every sort of race discrimination and privilege. The revolution will restore the land and wealth of the country to the people and guarantee democracy, freedom and equality of rights and opportunities to all'.
It makes clear that its 'immediate proposals' are put forward within the frame work of the Freedom Charter for urgent discussion by a National Convention, not in order to establish a socialist state but for the building of a national democratic state.
Over the past twenty or thirty years the weakest link in the imperialist system has been its inability to deal with the wants of the colonial peoples. There it has bred its own downfall because, on the one hand, it created mass poverty and economic instability and, on the other, developed intense feelings of nationalism. What imperialism succeeded in doing in the colonies in the twentieth century was to produce the worst evils which the industrial revolution produced in England in the early nineteenth century plus a deep sense of national consciousness. Hence in those parts of the world--India, Africa and the East-the so-called revolution has taken place but in different forms. Four empires have had to dissolve themselves and have been compelled to grant political independence to some thirty or forty States just as Britain was compelled to grant the vote to the so called 'lower' classes last century. But with three or four notable exceptions, these States have achieved their independence peacefully and without having to resort to any form of violence. South African State propaganda suggests that this was due to some mystical decadence in the West. Nothing could be further from the truth. Britain, France, Holland and Belgium have not in a couple of decades become soft or decadent. Far deeper forces have come into play which left them with no alternative but to do what they have done. The combination of the new nationalism and the urge to take control of their own economic future proved in the new States to be irresistible.
It should indeed not be difficult for South Africans to understand this process. In one sense we Afrikaners were the vanguard of this liberation movement in Africa. Of all former colonies, we displayed the greatest resistance to imperial conquest, a resistance which a handful of freedom fighters carried on for three years against the greatest Empire of all time. We failed then. A few decades later, without having once more to resort to arms, we succeeded in gaining our independence because it was impossible to stop us.... Now, as we communists see it, those who rule South Africa are trying to do just those things which imperialism could achieve in the nineteenth century but which are impossible in the second half of the twentieth. That attempt must lead inevitably to disaster.
From: The Sun will Rise - Statements from the Dock by Southern African Political Prisoners, Ed. Mary Benson, IDAF, London, 1981