The “Middle Road” Is a Road to Hell

Since 20 January, South Africa has been reeling under Trump’s attacks. From suspending HIV/AIDS funding to expelling the ambassador, threatening sanctions on ANC politicians and ripping up the AGOA trade agreement, they all follow one aim: blackmailing the country, saying, “Either get in line against China or we will destroy you.” There is a keen desire to defend our national sovereignty against this imperialist bullying. But despite this sentiment, many can sense that the country is like a deer trapped in the headlights, about to be smashed by the Trump train.

Why is this? What must be done to break the paralysis and prepare an effective defence? To begin with, it’s impossible to defend ourselves without confronting the Fifth Column of white monopoly capital that aids Trump and Musk from within the country. The backing of American imperialism is existential for the Randlords. They will do their utmost to maintain it, no matter how ruinous to the South African economy. To fight the enemy within, we must confront the policies of the parties leading the black masses, which all reinforce in their own way the national paralysis. From the ANC-led Tripartite Alliance to Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), all proclaim to varying degrees the need to resist US dictates and push back against economic subordination to the West. But their strategies end up disorganising and obstructing a real fight against US imperialism. Despite their political differences, all are based on hitching the struggle against Trump to the interests of the black elites—who themselves are fractured, weak and strangled by white monopoly capital yet at the end of the day are ready to sacrifice the national interest to benefit their own narrow interests.

With the ANC, this is clear to anyone who cares to see. They have already formed a GNU coalition government with openly pro-imperialist, white-dominated parties like the Democratic Alliance (DA) and are ratcheting up privatisation and shredding trade-union rights. They have no intention of putting up a serious fight against Trump and his Fifth Column, which could only blow the GNU apart. Instead, the ANC clings to the fantasy of charting a “middle road” between the US and China, hoping that relations can be fixed if Ramaphosa chats with Trump and exposes the fallacies of Afriforum’s racist propaganda! Failing that, the ANC tops pin their hopes on European junior imperialists and the WTO to stand up for the country as part of defending the liberal global order. This will do nothing to stop Trump. The only thing it will do is repel those with an objective interest in defending South Africa and other targets of US imperialism: workers in the Global South and the West.

What about MK and the EFF? As the main parties in opposition to the GNU, they are much more strident in denouncing Trump, excoriating the ANC’s weak-kneed response. They call for a shift in foreign policy in response to the US tariffs: drop the fantasy of “non-alignment” and ally with China and others challenging US hegemony. While this appeals to the masses’ appetite to resist US imperialism, MK and EFF both tell them that this can best be done with gradualist, parliamentary means. At the national level, they push for Ramaphosa to kick the DA out of the GNU and bring them in; internationally, they look to Xi, Putin and other Global South elites in BRICS+. Instead of forging anti-imperialist unity, this plays right into imperialist divide-and-rule: we already see BRICS+ heads enlisting in Trump’s trade war, while the DRC’s Tshisekedi and other African elites are also lining up behind the US master. This strategy will only lead to defeat. Instead of preparing the masses to defend themselves, it lulls them into passivity.

The EFF leaders put a radical face on the nationalist strategy, appealing to militant moods in their base in order to fend off competition from MK, for example, talking about the need for class struggle against imperialism and proclaiming 2025 the “Year of the Picket Lines.” At the same time, they have constantly offered the EFF as coalition-partners-in-waiting for Ramaphosa, ready to prop up the government if the ANC grows tired of kowtowing to the DA. In the end, this balancing act confuses and disorganises the most militant section of the masses. With such a strategy, of course you are not going to do what’s needed to organise the masses for struggle.

The task of revolutionaries in this situation is to defend the oppressed against Trump along class-struggle lines. This will sharpen the contradiction between the anti-imperialist aspirations of the masses and the nationalist strategy of their leadership. It is the opposite of what most of the Marxist left is doing, which is to cede the struggle to the nationalists. Some even declare that “workers have no side” in the trade war between the US and China. No! We must take a side with China against the US trade war and strengthen economic collaboration. To put that collaboration on a solid foundation, one that strengthens anti-imperialist unity against the US, it must be based on the needs of the working masses—in South Africa, throughout the continent and in China. This means fighting for a different leadership and strategy.

• To fight Trump and the DA, dump the butchers of Marikana!
• Fight the jobs bloodbath! Nationalize without compensation foreign-owned factories, mines and farms that retrench workers.
• For anti-imperialist unity! Workers in Africa, China: Elect delegates to work out a joint five-year economic plan aimed at countering Trump’s tariffs and addressing the urgent problems of national development.
• From Lagos to Nairobi, from Cairo to the Cape: Repudiate the debt to the imperialist bloodsuckers!