Creation: Editorial Department of the Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association
According to reports from foreign media on November 15, the South African government, in an attempt to crack down on so-called “illegal mining,” brazenly dispatched police, surrounding a mine called Steelfontein, trapping 4,000 “illegal” miners inside, and forbidding the miners’ families from bringing water, food, or medicine to them. They aim to weaken the miners physically and mentally by cutting off supplies, forcing them to leave the mine and accept arrest. In response, South African presidential cabinet minister Kumbuzo Ntshaniwe shamelessly boasted, “We will not help criminals. We will smoke them out and arrest them,” showing a complete image of a living hell king. Such brutal acts have continued for about a month now, with over 700 Mozambican miners detained and more than 1,000 “illegal” miners forcibly expelled and detained by South African reactionary police forcefully removed and detained.
This is not the first day such “illegal mining” incidents have occurred. In South Africa, the miners involved in “illegal mining” have actually become a large group, mostly composed of unemployed miners who were laid off by South Africa’s Gold Fields mining company. After losing their jobs, due to the severe oversupply of mining production in South Africa and the distorted state of the national economy revolving around mineral extraction, the unemployment rate remains high after the decline of various mining industries such as gold mining. Many unemployed gold miners, with nothing to lose and no way out, resort to illegal gold mining to support their families. A confession from a “illegal” miner in a BBC report best illustrates their despair: “I work here, but I don’t bother anyone. I just support my family.” These “illegal” miners are neither ruthless killers nor greedy thieves, but poor people risking legal and life-threatening dangers to mine gold to feed themselves and their families. The only charge declared by the South African bourgeois government against them is daring to touch the “sacred and inviolable” bourgeois property, treating the mineral resources monopolized by big capital as their own rightful possessions to be exploited.
Why have South African miners fallen into such destitution that they have to risk violating bourgeois laws to survive? Bourgeois defenders babble about South Africa’s gold reserves being exhausted, claiming that the decline in gold production since the 1970s is an inevitable result of the depletion of South Africa’s gold deposits. This bourgeois geographical determinism explanation is not only reactionary and shirks responsibility but also absurd. [1] First, factually speaking, the so-called remaining gold reserves in South Africa refer only to shallow surface deposits, while deeper deposits remain largely unexplored. Since 2003, South Africa has ceased constructing any new deep gold mines. The Witwatersrand Basin, the world’s largest gold-producing region, still contains enormous underground gold resources, with the Western Wits Mine, for example, still far from depletion in terms of reserves not yet exhausted. Overall, even authoritative bourgeois institutions such as the US Geological Survey, established by US imperialism, must admit that out of the 59,000 tons of proven gold reserves worldwide, South Africa holds 5,000 tons, accounting for 8.47% of the world’s reserves. Moreover, this is far from the actual gold reserves in South Africa. Driven by profit motives, the bourgeoisie has increasingly reluctant to invest large capital in exploring unexploited deep deposits, preferring to cling to surface deposits that require little investment but have limited reserves, thus depleting resources at low cost. Consequently, in all gold exploration and development projects in South Africa, projects in the grassroots exploration, exploration, and pre-feasibility stages account for 5.42%, 5.42%, and 30.05% respectively, totaling 40.89%, nearly equal to the 41.38% of projects in production. Many of these in-production projects are old mines being mined for their old reserves, with only 10.34% and 7.39% in feasibility study and mine construction stages respectively, totaling only 17.73%. Projects in grassroots exploration and exploration stages are even lower, only 10.84%. [2] Doesn’t this clearly show how imperialist invaders and their South African comprador bourgeoisie prioritize profits, refusing to explore and exploit new deposits due to low profitability? Therefore, there is no reason to attribute the depletion of South Africa’s gold resources to imperialist and bourgeois companies’ failure to thoroughly investigate and exploit gold deposits. The decline in gold output is entirely caused by the bourgeoisie’s unwillingness to continue investing capital in low-profit gold mining, and the real cause of miners’ unemployment is the reactionary capitalist production relations, not some natural geographic condition.
The most important point is that the gold mining industry itself has nothing to do with the unemployment of South African miners. As a colonial country, South Africa’s economy is abnormally developed, entirely serving imperialist plunder. The mining industry, which supplies raw materials for imperialism, has developed abnormally, crowding out agriculture and other sectors necessary for national economic development but not permitted by imperialism. It is also extremely backward, still relying heavily on manual labor, which is inefficient, highly dangerous, but cheap, leading to severe life-threatening risks for miners. In fact, if society as a whole could develop a rational social production plan, allocate labor and resources reasonably across sectors, and adjust the industrial structure to reflect the social proportion of gold mining, some miners could expand into deeper and broader mining, while others could be transferred to other sectors through proper arrangements. It is clear that the unemployment of South African miners is not a natural phenomenon but a consequence of the distorted development caused by imperialist invasion. Once imperialism is expelled, bourgeois private ownership is abolished, and socialist planned economy is established, South Africa can eliminate not only miners’ unemployment but all unemployment in society.
Not only is the unemployment of South African miners caused by capitalism, but there is also no reason to condemn their unemployment and subsequent illegal mining activities. Instead, the reactionary South African bourgeois regime’s accusations against these miners are outright black-and-white reversal. In fact, who created South Africa’s gold wealth? Who created the gold mines? It was none other than the broad masses of miners in South Africa. Under imperialist and their running dogs’ coercion, they have endured arduous mining labor year after year, creating capitalist gold illusions for imperialism and comprador bourgeoisie, while they themselves only received dark ashes of their ancestors. Over a hundred years ago, imperialist robbers had already extended their claws into South Africa, targeting its rich gold deposits. They committed massacres, looting, and forced local black populations, contemptuously called “black ants,” into cheap labor, forcing them into remote, isolated mines, paying extremely low wages, and exploiting them through company-run stores and other means. In the brutal slavery of gold mining companies, many black miners died in large numbers, and imperialism used the blood of the people to forge their gold and their wealth and prosperity. Today, the unique language of communication among South African miners in the mines—“Fanagalo,” based on Zulu—serves as evidence of this dark era. Even now, most South African miners are the poorest black workers, driven by livelihood needs to be employed by gold mining companies, “working 12 hours a day, earning only 5 dollars a day, with child labor earning 2 or even 1 dollar.” Their death rate remains shockingly high—“In 2018, the total mining accident death toll in South Africa was 81, a 10% decrease from 90 in 2017.” Even such harsh working conditions do not last forever. When gold mining declines, miners face ruthless expulsion, falling into poverty without income. From 2004 to 2015, one-third of the 180,000 miners engaged in gold extraction were laid off, with an unemployment rate of 33%! Ultimately, the real masters of these gold mines are the South African people—they sacrificed everything to build the prosperity of South Africa’s gold industry, and all wealth of South African gold mining companies was created by these miners. Yet, when abandoned ruthlessly by capitalists, forced to risk illegal mining, these bourgeois robbers who previously seized African black people’s gold mines and profited from exploiting miners shamelessly claim these mines as their private property, declaring miners’ illegal activities. How inverted is this black-and-white reversal! The real criminals should be the bourgeois robbers with beastly hearts, not the miners!
It must be pointed out that even such more dangerous “illegal” mining by company-employed miners cannot guarantee stable lives for South African miners. In the illegal mining industry, due to internal division among small producers and external influence from the bourgeoisie, South Africa’s “illegal” mining is actually controlled by numerous bourgeois-controlled gangs. Under gang oppression, miners’ hard work mostly results in their income being seized by gold mining companies or gangs, and some miners are even subjected to brutal abuse by gangs due to the illegal nature of their mining. Countless miners have been murdered, and some are kidnapped by gangs, becoming unpaid, powerless slaves. The reason why South African miners’ various efforts have not freed them from poverty is not due to their own shortcomings, but because under capitalism’s continued exploitation, whether working legally for gold companies or illegally in small-scale mining, the exploitative relations of production only penetrate all fields. As long as the bourgeoisie controls the means of production and holds political power, while miners are destitute and have no political rights, their living conditions will not fundamentally improve regardless of where they go.
So where is the way out? During the mid-Ming Dynasty in China, there were also miners oppressed by feudal landlords, risking legal and life dangers to illegally mine gold. They faced brutal persecution from the feudal government. Initially, they planned to switch to other locations, but found themselves unable to escape the pursuit of the feudal government and exploitation by merchants. Eventually, they found a way—launching an uprising to seize control of gold mines, land, and houses. Although their uprising ultimately failed, it dealt a heavy blow to the rotten feudal system and improved the lives of the people at that time. This was the mid-Ming Dynasty’s large-scale miners’ and peasants’ uprising—led by Ye Zongliu and Deng Maoqi. Deng Maoqi, calling himself “King of Shovels,” vowed to “destroy the cannibalistic feudal exploitation system,” eliminate inequality, and bring a society free of exploitation and oppression through revolutionary violence. For today’s South African miners still trapped in the capitalist hell, uniting like the Chinese miners of centuries ago and launching a people’s uprising to eradicate the cancer of capitalism and establish a peaceful new South Africa is their only way out. Beneath the heavy strata, there is always a fiery anger that refuses to be silent!
The analogy with the movie “The Young Generation” is that Xiao Jiye’s team is like grassroots geologists exploring potential mineral sites, collecting samples, and conducting research. If reports confirm the presence of deposits, large numbers of workers will be dispatched with machinery to drill and explore further. If results remain positive, experts from institutions like Shanghai Geological College will prepare reports on how to benefit ruling and capitalist interests, seeking government approval. After approval, detailed feasibility studies and mine construction plans are made, leading to actual mining. This division is a mechanical reflection of bourgeois classification, and under socialist principles, the stages would differ, but this analogy illustrates the process.
Mineral exploration and mining projects are generally divided into the following stages according to bourgeois definitions: grassroots exploration, exploration, pre-feasibility study, feasibility study, mine construction, and production. Among these, grassroots exploration, exploration, and pre-feasibility are basically considered as stages where the project has not yet been truly confirmed, and mining is just an unsubstantiated paper plan. Grassroots exploration involves sending geologists and other professionals to potential mineral sites to collect samples and study local geological conditions. Exploration refers to deploying large machinery and investing more resources based on credible grassroots reports to conduct systematic exploration. Pre-feasibility involves preliminary analysis of exploration results to determine whether overall mining needs can be met. Feasibility study is a detailed research phase analyzing technical and economic conditions to assess project viability. Mine construction begins once the project is approved, leading to actual ore extraction and production. The smaller the proportion of projects in grassroots and exploration stages, the less interest the bourgeoisie has in discovering new deposits, indicating their preference to sit on existing resources. The larger the proportion of projects in feasibility and construction stages, the more the bourgeoisie is engaged in actual development, with a tendency to exploit old mines rather than new ones. When the proportion of projects in production is high and those in earlier stages are low, it reflects the bourgeoisie’s parasitic nature, preferring to profit from old reserves and hindering productive development, which is a reactionary effect of capitalist relations of production. ↩︎
Chen Xifeng: “Characteristics of Global Gold Mineral Distribution, Exploration and Development Patterns, and Outlook,” China Mining, Vol. 33, No. 10, 2024, October. ↩︎