At Least 75% of the Way to Talks : South Africa: Even Communism is de-demonized. Barnacles of apartheid remain, but repression is the loser.

A journalist friend in Cape Town arrived home after heavy celebrating last Friday evening to find a message from the South African Communist Party on his telex machine.

This would have been unheard of the day before, when hobnobbing with the Communist Party could have resulted in a prison term. That is the measure of change introduced by President Frederik W. de Klerk the same day.

Uncharacteristic response from black opposition leaders, such as “incredible” and “deeply impressed,” greeted news that African National Congress stalwart Nelson Mandela is to be freed, banned organizations legalized, some press restrictions lifted, political prisoners released, the death penalty suspended and exiles welcome to return home.

The masses marched for joy in the cities, watched by low-profile police.

The “de-demonizing” of the Communist ogre--for years the main focus of government hostility toward black nationalism--was perhaps the most unexpected and symbolic event. It placed South Africa in fairly enlightened Western company.

Shorn of its underground mystique, the Communist Party must now show its strength--or its weakness--in an environment of freed black nationalism. Its leaders concede in the aftermath of the shocks in the East Bloc that strategic reconsideration lies ahead. There is no doubt that the new freedoms and ideological confusions in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have contributed directly to the de-demonization process in South Africa.

The old South African propaganda target--repressive Stalinist communism--hardly exists.

De Klerk’s quantum leap--which this writer judges to be at least 75% of the way necessary to create conditions for realistic talks with the ANC--underscores a modern-day truth: The world of the microchip and fax machine, notably the capacity to speed freedom ideas from one corner of the earth to the other, ensures that things will never be the same. Repression is the loser.

South Africa is poised for the first time since the 1950s to negotiate rather than fight over the question of democratic rights for all. The crass bans on the Communist Party in 1950 and on the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress in 1960 have been rectified at last. We are back to the 1950s, but in a much changed world.

Stubborn, crusty barnacles of apartheid remain to be pried from the body politic. Whites must get used to the idea of taking their place in society according to their skills and numbers, like everyone else. The bad news is that this enormous adjustment process could be lengthy and dangerous--and could yet founder.

De Klerk’s reforms are a shiny but relatively small pool of freedom in an environment of entrenched repression and racial discrimination. That environment is a continuing state of emergency (with, for instance, police power to detain without trial for up to six months), laws that restrict individuals and organizations and crucial apartheid measures in government schooling, living areas and land allocation, a racial population register and separate constitutional rights.

The government is wedded to these, in some degree or other, and it will take tough bargaining and pressure to change this.

De Klerk’s generalized references, for instance, to “universal franchise” and “equality before an independent judiciary,” require fleshing out. He still clings to the concept of group rights--or “national entities”--which could mean a white veto over major decisions. A single one-person one-vote constitution has so far not been acceptable to him or even to many in the cautiously liberal Democratic Party opposition--not to mention the right-wing.

Yet black leaders of any standing will refuse a deal that they see as a ruse by whites to appear to “share power” while in reality dividing and ruling the black majority. They want majority rule.

That is the nitty-gritty of the months--and probably years--of negotiation that lie ahead. De Klerk will no doubt seek to spin out the talks as long as possible.

Undoubtedly, though, the beginning of the end of white rule has been sounded by De Klerk himself. He has firm control of the process and will want to retain it. Right-wing whites might well kick up a fuss. But judges who are relatively independent in South Africa will be called on to deal with any excesses.

Meanwhile, the country is promised a respite from the bloodletting and economic and social damage of past years. If the potentially powerful economy starts to reflect the hopes rather than the fears of all the people, that locomotive will move to underpin the talks. Consequently, whites might fear a bit less and militant blacks be a bit less angry. A tolerably free non-racial democracy at the foot of Africa could emerge to match Eastern Europe’s experiences in freedom.