the likely outcome.
To anticipate the outcome of the Pearce Commission's deliberations on the Rhodesian settlement it is important to understand its function. Grand commissions and inquiries* have been the stock in trade of British capitalism. As a method for delaying or deflecting altogether public demands; preparing the timing and extent of reforms; or as in this case, providing a formula for investigating and settling some tricky dispute in a favourable way for the ruling class; they have over two centuries become an essential part of the administrative and ideological apparatus of the state.
Pearce's original function was to provide a pure rubber stamp for the settlement. The confidence of both the British government and the Smith regime was such that the settlement was completely concluded before the "test' ofopinion, in the belief that the Africans would be docile and submissive. But the response of the Africans has upset the strategy of the imperialist partners and has raised difficulties for the Tories. It should be remembered that such state commissions are not always guaranteed to deliver the goods. In 1959 for example, Pearce's predecessor Lord Devlin's inquiry in Nyasaland was obliged to expose the absurdity of the "plot" charges against Africans, and also the repressive role of the then Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland government. Sometimes unfortunately for the ministry of the day, the long term "credibility' of a bourgeois institution itself must come before the immediate expedient, and the government has to face the more embarrassing alternative of rejecting the view of an "impartial' and trusted servant of the state, as was the case with Devlin's 1959 report.
On the other hand, the situation today is somewhat more acute. While Pearce has to keep in mind the overall difficulties of the state, the immediate need for a united front in the ruling class is pressing-in this area the Widgery tribunal has the difficult but absolutely essential task of credibly whitewashing the massacre in Derry. Therefore while there is some possibility that the Tories will have to withstand further divisions in their own class over the Rhodesian settlement they have by portionately large political weight. They are feared by the white working class because of their competitive threat in the labour market, and by the whole white population as a physical threat surrounding as they do all the major cities. Thus, the growth of the black proletariat has been stifled by racist legislation excluding blacks from most jobs and restricting their numbers in manual jobs. In addition black workers in industry are only paid one-twelfth of white wages. These conditions have produced a black working class which, far from having severed its roots in the peasantry, maintains them more strongly because of the common super exploitation of all blacks, and thus emerged in the January days as the embryonic class-conscious vanguard of the whole black masses. Thus while the upsurge against the Home-Smith settlement was most violent and heroic in the townships and mining towns of the midlands, the peasantry were able to respond in complete unison. While the history of those few weeks has still to be deeply analysed there is little doubt that the relationship between the town and the country was one of complete unity in an enormous spontaneous anti-imperialist protest. Doubtless the key to the success of the future struggle lies in the political maturity of this alliance.
IMPERIALIST LEGACY The eighty odd years since the colonial settlement of Rhodesia has been a period of steady and increasing exploitation of the black Rhodesian masses. The period of bloody warfare to drive the peasants from the rich land in 1890s was followed by the growth and consolidation of a racist capitalist state which reduced the Africans to a state of semi-destitution. Their conditions did not improve but worsened under the post war liberal' regimes.
Contrary to liberal myths UDI was not the decisive turning point in the conditions or prospectsof the Africans. UDlaccentuated the decline of the Africans position, mainly through the shifting of the burden of sanctions onto the Africans-25,000 African jobs were lost in the first two years. But the loss of legal rights and the application of repressive measures came after the Rhodesian Front government came to power, as a coalition of the frightened petty bourgeoisie, white working class and settler farmers who could not even stomach the possibility of any mild reforms which liberalized the economy. In all this In applying sanctions, the British government above all was at pains to do nothing that would upset its relations with South Africa-the home of massive British capital-and Portugal, whose fascist regime the Tories are today trying to help get into the EEC. Both these regimes backed Smith politically and in the case of South Africa, economically and militarily as well, during the course of UDI.
THE MEANING OF A SETTLEMENT There is little likelihood that either party to this dirty deal will turn back at this late stage, for there are good reasons for both to accept it. Many businessmen have been inconvenienced by sanctions-though naturally assets have only been frozen, not confiscated, and can again be used freely together with accumulated dividends when sanctions are lifted. There are mounting pressures also on the Tory leadership from the psychopathic racists in the ranks who are no longer able or willing to contain themselves. Most important though, the United States has set the pace in reestablishing normal relations with the regime and has already shipped cargoes of chrome out of Rhodesia. For strategic reasons British capital can now hardly fail to rejoin the competitive struggle for the Rhodesian import market and investment opportunities. Despite the fact that the whites have been able to shift the main material burden of sanc tions onto the blacks the growing manufacturing bourgeoisie will be most relieved by a deal Above all they hope to enjoy a boom of capita investment and access to export markets of which they have been starved since UDI. However, the attempt to revamp the stagnatin economy of Rhodesia will raise the deep and underlying contradictions to the surface once again. The contradiction of capitalist develop ment in a racist superstructure, which underlines the crisis of the last decade has in no way been solved. The process of absolute impoverishment of the rural masses in order to maintain white domination has closed off the possibility of long term growth by the expansion of the internal market. Similarly, the retardation of the growth of a black proletari has the same effect. Here is the deadly contra diction in Rhodesian society, for which there can be nothing but the most short lived temporary solution under capitalism.
Ben Joseph
Peasants Government' until it was actually used to prepare the massacre of workers and peasants by the bourgeoisie. A slogan has to of the various organisations in Ireland and this can be expressed in slogans. This leads on to a theoretical examination of the present struggle