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All this is moving and impressive, but there is also something slightly pathetic about seeing groups of 19-and 20-year-olds, sketchily educated, with some passionate but rather naive ideas about history and politics, cast as the leaders of a black revolution. Ultimately the question is just how serious black resistance can be, how much difference it can make. As long ago as the mid-'40s, there were predictions of an imminent eruption in South Africa. There were many individual outbursts, but Armageddon never came. Black South Africans (and indeed whites as well) are subject to a formidable, determined, often brutal, well-armed police state. Apart from being put in jail for a variety of reasons, people may be "banned"—restricted to a certain location, prohibited from attending meetings (including church) or going to school. Such intimidation works. So far, there have been few signs of urban guerrilla action or terrorism. There have been some individual work stoppages, and it is generally assumed that a one-week strike of the black work force around Johannesburg could shatter or at least severely damage the South African economy. No such strike has happened, because black workers are afraid of reprisals and because they cannot afford a strike, living as they do mostly just above poverty. The government may well keep the lid on for many more years or even decades. As one white editor says, "Soweto riots could just become an annual event." And yet the present situation—a continuing white sense of living under siege, a continuing black fever of resentment—cannot go on indefinitely without serious damage to the country. Fear would spread like slow poison (and, among other things, would deter investment from abroad). Sooner or later, the jailed always deform the jailers.
The government is convinced, or pretends to be, that black resistance is stirred up by Communists. Undoubtedly there is some Communist agitation and organization, although it is impossible to say how much or how systematic. Without question, the government —which all too quickly labels many kinds of criticism or opposition as Communist—vastly exaggerates the situation. There is a lot of Marxist or quasi-Marxist talk, but basically the blacks know little of Communism—except that it appears to be on their side. Official South Africa believes that it is making a brave stand against Communist encroachment. In fact, the South African regime is a formidable ally of Communism.
As in so many other places, the suppression of legitimate, moderate opposition leads to radicalization. Marxism in the black African countries, plus obvious Soviet attempts at penetration, is a very legitimate worry for South Africa—and the U.S. Some sort of socialist, one-party government is inevitable for many black African countries at this stage, but that does not mean Soviet control or even influence. Far from it. As Moscow has discovered, Africa's mercurial nations make difficult ground for political colonization. They are fiercely divided among themselves. The one thing that unites them is opposition to the racist regimes of southern Africa, and the chief force that attracts them to Moscow is the promise of support in that conflict.