ABSTRACT
The extension of capitalist relations of production across the South African social formation has proletarianised and/or marginalised the Transkei peasantry, i.e. transformed pre-capitalist relations of production into fully capitalist relations. There are important structural differences between the incorporation of the Transkei region into the social formation pre — and post-1948. Proletarianised agents are forced to sell their labour-power in the centres of capitalist production in the social formation. There have been attempts to restructure agriculture in the region, with far reaching consequences for production relations and class formation. The independence of the Transkei is seen essentially as an aspect of state intervention to restructure relations of exploitation within the broad South African social formation. All classes are frac-turated according to various criteria — position in the labour process; the historical experience of becoming a class, particularly when race, language and cultural differences impinge on that process of class formation.
