Total Onslaught, Total Strategy

• State of Apartheid regime up to 1978: Going well?

  • Apartheid had been able to defend itself against an increasing number of opponents throughout the 1970s – both internal and external
  • They had support from Western nations due to the Cold War
  • Vorster’s election success after the Soweto Uprising indicated sustained support for the regime from whites in South Africa
• State of Apartheid regime up to 1978: Not Going Well?

  • Vorster was forced to resign – Muldergate Scandal
  • Buffer states were now ruled by blacks (Angola, Mozambique and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), so they no longer offered protection from other anti-apartheid African countries
  • Sanction pressure internationally was increasing
  • Potential internal uprisings were looking more likely as well
• 4 Threats:

  • Internal Uprisings
  • Black population grew faster than white
  • 1/8 population white, 1980, to 1/5 1950
  • Despite influx control, over half blacks lived in towns
  • MK guerrilla sabotage attacks increased
  • Invasion
  • Angola and Mozambique white rule end '76, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) '80
  • No ‘Buffer states’
  • Hostile neighbours
  • Support ANC
  • MK Bases
  • USSR
  • Support Communists inside
  • Near Communist invasion risk; Angola
  • International Sanctions
  • Sport and art boycott
  • More sanctions pressure
  • Foreign business pressured to withdraw investments
• South Africa 1978:

  • PW Botha succeeded Vorster as PM 1978
  • Determined to maintain white rule in
  • Despite increasing threats from home and abroad
  • Called this ‘total onslaught’
  • Blamed communists (ensure western support)
  • Realised that he would need to reform apartheid, but with strong and aggressive control
  • Ironically, extreme white supremacists criticised him for concessions
• New Constitution 1983

  • Complicated new constitution drawn up for South Africa in 1983
  • Coloureds and Indians allowed to vote for their representatives in their parliaments
  • 178 places in white parliament
  • 85 in Coloured
  • 45 in Indian
  • Cabinet drawn proportionally from three Parliaments
  • Blacks excluded
  • Allowed to vote for local black assemblies
  • Had some responsibility for local affairs
  • Ultimately whites remained in control
  • Used constitution to pose as multiracial
  • Many people unhappy and did not bother voting
  • Blacks, Indians and Coloureds boycott new parliament and council elections
• New constitution Diagram

  Label

  A) 4.7

  B) 2.6

  C) 1.2

  D) 20.5

  
• Total onslaught

  Story was

  • Threat to South Africa (and West) by USSR's design
  • South Africa
  • Africa's industrial powerhouse
  • Guardian of sea lanes around Cape of Good Hope
  • Possessor of enormous mineral wealth
  • Would enable USSR to hold world ransom
  • Furthermore, revolutionary forces in South Africa were intent on supporting and fuelling threat

  Could there have been a total strategy without total onslaught?

  • Justification to international community and white South Africans would have been far more difficult