PART ONE OF THIS PAPER SPEAKS TO THE MARXIST IDEOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE QUESTION OF NATIONAL LIBERATION – THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF DETERMINATION – THE IRISH QUESTION AS AN EXAMPLE – the 1928 resolution of the COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL (COMINTERN) contains this observation: “…the Communist Party of South Africa found itself in stubborn opposition to the correct slogan proposed by the Comintern calling for an independent native South African republic as a stage towards a workers’ and peasants’ republic with full, equal rights for all races.”
HISTORIC TASK OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY
The Communist Manifesto says:
The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other
proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the
bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.
It is now necessary to bring in the SACP in the context of all the foregoing. In this
regard we must point out that:
i) the CPSA/SACP was directly interested in the victory of the national
democratic revolution (NDR), to give birth to the Black Republic, because,
as the vanguard Party of the proletariat, it was interested that the black
workers must be liberated from the yoke of colonial, white minority
domination and oppression; and,
ii) the CPSA/SACP was and continues to be interested in the victory of the
NDR, and therefore the birth of a democratic republic, because this victory
would create the best conditions for it as the vanguard Party of the
proletariat to attend to its historic mission, of organising for what the
Communist Manifesto detailed as the ‘overthrow of the bourgeois
supremacy, (and) conquest of political power by the proletariat’.
In this context, it is obvious that to attend to the task of the ‘formation of the
proletariat as a class’, to educate and train ‘the proletariat for itself’, the SACP
could have followed the example set by the international Communist
movement and engaged in the kind of parliamentary activity described by
Engels.
Later we will return to the question why the SACP has not done this during the
period of the first 30 years of the democratic republic.
Part of the explanation for this is that nowhere in the documents of the SACP
do we find a commitment and programme to achieve the objectives stated in
the Communist Manifesto, relating to “all proletarian parties”, of the
“formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois
supremacy, (and) conquest of political power by the proletariat.”
TASKS OF THE SACP
The defining document of the SACP, its Programme, is entitled:
South African Struggle for Socialism: Programme, Strategic Perspectives
and Tasks. People, Solidarity and the Environment over Profits
Together, Let’s Build a Powerful, Socialist Movement of the Workers and
Poor!
It was adopted by the SACP 15th National Congress in July 2022.
The first two paragraphs of the Programme read as follows:
Never before in history has the need for a different, a humane world been
more desperately required. Today, the central task of all progressive forces is
the struggle to put people before profits, to put the environment before
private accumulation, to put internationalist solidarity before deepening
inequality and imperialist militarism.We need a Communist Party with strengthening its vanguard capacity and
building a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor as its priority
towards ending economic exploitation and its consequent forms of
oppression, towards securing and defending universal social emancipation,
and towards rescuing the ecosystem from destruction by the capitalist mode
of production, its patterns of consumption and its other social relations of
production.
It concludes as follows:
There are six tributaries that the SACP has identified as crucial in the struggle
to unite the widest range of working-class and popular forces in South Africa,
towards a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor.
“(1) Building a powerful, progressive trade union movement.
“The first tributary is building a powerful, progressive trade union movement…
“(2) Building working-class and popular power in our proletarian
communities. –
“The second tributary is building working-class and popular power in our
proletarian communities…
“(3) Accelerating land redistribution
“The third tributary is accelerating land redistribution…
“(4) Radical transformation of the financial sector.
“The fourth tributary is deepening financial sector transformation under the
Financial Sector Campaign. This includes, besides fighting financial
exploitation, tackling the structural problems of the financial sector, including
its domination by commercial oligopolies…
“(5) Building a capable democratic developmental state
“The fifth tributary is transformation to build a capable democratic
developmental state…
“(6) Unity of the world working-class movement for peace and
development.
“The sixth tributary is to pursue the unity of the world working-class, to
intensify the anti-imperialist struggle for a just, peaceful world, and to
eliminate uneven development…
Progressive forces should seek to unite the widest possible components of
society against all forms of imperialist aggression. In our national context, this
anti-imperialist struggle requires intensifying internationalist struggles and
solidarity.In Southern Africa and Africa broadly, the struggle should include
building interconnected regional and continental working-class movements
and solidarity, including revitalising the African Left Networking Forum,
(ALNEF) and transforming it into a formidable force to be reckoned with.
Going through the Programme, we find great concern about such matters as:
- “the struggle against neoliberal austerity and the hyper-financialisation of
our economy”; - “neoliberal orthodoxy and hyper-financialisation”;
- “socially destructive neoliberal policies of austerity and structural reform”;
- “the strangle-hold that the monopoly financial sector now has over our
political economy”; - “the dependent-development accumulation path of our economy”; and,
- “two-and-a-half decades of neoliberal restructuring of our economy”.
At the same time, there is virtually no discussion in the Programme about the
place and role of private capital and the capitalist class.
This is despite the fact that the private sector accounts for at least 70% of the
economy in terms of the stock of capital in the country and the average
proportion of new investment in the economy over a significant period of time!
In any case, nowhere does the SACP Programme explain the significance of
the ‘six tributaries’ it highlights, such matters as “the struggle against
neoliberal austerity and the hyper-financialisation of our economy”, and the
absence of a serious analysis of private capital and its owners, to the task of
all ‘proletarian parties’ of the “formation of the proletariat into a class,
overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, (and) conquest of political power by
the proletariat”.
THE SACP AND ELECTIONS DURING THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
With regard to the matter raised by the Communist Manifesto and later by
Engels and Lenin, concerning taking advantage of the democratic republic,
the Programme has such comments as:
Should the SACP contest elections in its own name, for and with the working
class as a working-class Party in the relatively near or medium-term future,
we should be clear that we are not talking about “taking state power”.Such a campaign realistically should aim to place more firmly on the public
agenda the prospects and necessity to roll back neoliberal austerity, for the
possibilities and imperatives of a socialist advance, to bring hope to an
alienated youth, or to a disaffected ANC support base, and to use our
independent presence in legislatures to act as “people’s tribunes”.This will require that we neither tail behind the general mood and aspirations of the
great majority of the workers and poor, nor that we place ourselves so far ahead with left-sounding rhetoric that we reduce ourselves to a small clique…[ Emphasis in the Programme],
In handling the question of electoral politics and contestation, the SACP will
at all times continue to improve its theory and practice as a Marxist-Leninist
Party based on inviolable ties with the working-class masses. Besides
consolidating the SACP’s fighting strength and vanguard capacity, it is
essential to build a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor as a
critical component of an effective, mass-based consolidation in active
struggles of popular and working-class forces…
It is clear from these Programme observations that the SACP is a great
distance away from understanding what the international Communist
movement has meant and means about the use of the possibilities opened up
by the democratic republic to ‘spread socialist enlightenment’, as Lenin put
it, as part of the process of the ‘formation of the proletariat into a class’, the
making of the ‘proletariat for itself’.
During December 2024, the SACP held its 5th Special National Congress, at
which its General Secretary, Comrade Solly Mapaila, delivered the SACP
Central Committee Political Report. Among other things, the Political Report
says:
One of the major outcomes of the SACP (2022) 15th National Congress was
on the matter of contesting elections, which calls for the first SACP
Augmented Central Committee Plenary following the 15th National Congress
to…conclude a review of progress and assess its experience on the
reconfiguration of the Alliance, the renewal and unity process, and related to
these and after relevant factors, finalise the roadmap and modalities to
contest elections.This Special National Congress should give the binding finality of the
matter…One thing is clear from now on we are contesting all elections starting
with the local government elections…For the SACP the electoral campaign platform, will need to be built around an
anti-neo-liberal, anti-corruption, pro-worker and pro-poor agenda, a platform
guided by the South African Struggle for Socialism.
Indeed, as required, the 5th Special National Congress confirmed that the
SACP must contest the next (2026) local government elections on a ‘wall-to
wall’ basis.
Of course, the SACP was perfectly within its rights when it took this decision
to contest the next local government elections and all other subsequent
elections.
In this regard and taking into account the consistent views and experience of
the international Communist movement, we must argue that this decision
was long delayed.
The South African democratic republic was born in 1994, just over thirty years
ago. It seems clear that the SACP, the vanguard of the proletariat and Party of
Socialism, should have used this fact earlier than now, to take advantage of
the space created by the fact of this republic to promote support for the
Socialist Revolution.
As we have seen, the Political Report says that the SACP the electoral
campaign platform must be based on ‘an anti-neo-liberal, anti-corruption,
pro-worker and pro-poor agenda’.
Such an agenda is not unique to the Communist Party. It cannot rationally be
the reason that the SACP decided to break with the practice of contesting the
elections as part of the ANC, electing to contest these elections on its own.
What distinguishes the SACP is that it is the Party of Socialism.
As such a Party, and as the Communist Manifesto says, it has the historic task
or mission, like all ‘other proletarian parties’, to ensure the ‘formation of the
proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, (and) conquest
of political power by the proletariat’.
Having taken the correct decision to contest the elections, the SACP must do
this as the Party of Socialism and therefore have an election campaign
platform which seeks to promote the advance towards the victory of the
Socialist Revolution.
Further, it is important that the SACP should also understand that the fact that
it has decided to contest the elections as a Party of Socialism does not and
should not mean that it has thereby become an opponent of its historic ally,
the ANC, the continuing leader of the NDR.
For it to use the possibilities provided by the democratic republic for the first
time to promote socialism, does not require the SACP to contest the local
government elections on a wall-to-wall basis. It can easily contest the
elections in some, not all, the municipalities.
On the other hand, if the SACP contests these elections on a wall-to-wall
basis, objectively it positions itself as an opponent of its historic ally, the ANC.
Such a posture can only serve the interests of the right-wing forces, which can
never be an aim of the Party of Socialism.
The strategic question which the SACP will have to answer is – will it stand for
election as a Party of the NDR or will it stand for election as a Party of
Socialism.
Of course, all this is relevant to the important matter raised very sharply and
on a sustained basis by the SACP of the Reconfiguration of the Tripartite
Alliance.
At the heart of the insistence by the SACP for this Reconfiguration of the
Alliance is its interpretation of the relationship between the National
Democratic and the Socialist Revolutions and its role and place in these
revolutions.
We will now cite a few quotations from various SACP documents as pointers
in terms of explaining the matters at issue concerning the proposed
reconfiguration of the Alliance.
ON THE ALLIANCE RECONFIGURATION: QUOTATIONS FROM VARIOUS SACP DOCUMENTS.
Our principal programmatic strategic task is therefore to build a powerful
national democratic movement in which the class interests of the broad
working class become hegemonic with a view to achieving socialist advances
in the midst of advancing, deepening and defending an ongoing NDR…
By standing in the elections accordingly, the SACP seeks…also to advance
the NDR as a national, anti-imperialist, democratic revolution in pursuit of
non-capitalist development…
A National Democratic Revolution (NDR) as the most effective path to
socialism in the South African reality is not a new programmatic strategy for
the SACP…
The struggle for socialism is a struggle in the present for radically
transformative advances (revolutionary-reforms, as opposed to neoliberal
policy/structural reforms), requiring working-class and popular hegemony in
all key sites of power in the midst of the NDR…
The Party must, within the terrain of the NDR and with the NDR as the road to
socialism in our historical conditions, elaborate socialist oriented or non
capitalist development measures…
In the ultimate analysis, a progressive left popular front is itself a particular
expression of an alliance – i.e. of left forces converging on the necessity to
advance, deepen and defend a second radical phase of the NDR – the most
direct and shortest road to socialism in our country’s historical conditions…
This strategic re-orientation was captured in the SACP’s slogan first
advanced at our 1995 congress – “Socialism is the Future, Build it Now!”… The
SACP has consistently explained what we mean is not some fool-hardly great
leap forward. Building socialism now, is about building capacity for,
momentum towards, and even elements of socialism in the midst of a broad
based NDR…
In other words, the Party has moved away from a tendency to understand the
national democratic and socialist struggles as if they belonged to two
separate and successive compartments – “first an NDR, and only then a
struggle for socialism”…
In the past few years, we have asserted that there is no
mechanical/automatic equivalence between the ANC and the NDR, “the ANC
doesn’t own the NDR”…
At the heart of the reformist tendency’s ideological revisionism (in the ANC)
was an attempt to re-cast the understanding of a national democratic
revolution. It was now presented as a “stage” in which a “bourgeois
democratic revolution” would be “completed”, essentially through
“deracialising” the capitalist class…
(There is) recognition of the continuing strategic relevance of the Alliance
and its centrality to the national democratic revolution, thus its primary
position, as stated in the declaration (as) adopted, as the strategic political
centre of the revolution…
A reconfigured Alliance must be seen not only in theory, but also in practice
acting as the strategic political centre of the NDR in relation at least to the
struggle to win the battle of democracy, state power and the process of
governance associated with it…
We agreed at the first National Alliance Summit held after Polokwane, in May
2008, that the Alliance must function as a strategic political centre, and that
we must develop its capacity to act as such…
The principle that the SACP is now putting forward, that there must be
democratic consensus seeking consultation – before all major policy,
deployments and accountability decisions are made – as the cornerstone of a
reconfigured alliance functioning as a strategic political centre of the NDR is
crucial…
The Alliance Political Council should therefore at least hold Quarterly
Sessions to guide the implementation of the national democratic revolution
and serve as the standing platform for consultation on all major policy
questions and considerations…
In a democratic context of an Alliance and given the number of challenges
still inhibiting the fruition of the NDR, state power is too important to be left in
the hands of one Alliance partner alone – and it does not matter which one it
is.
IN ESSENCE AND OVERALL – WHAT IS THE SACP SAYING?
Marxism-Leninism and therefore the international Communist movement
have always insisted that the Democratic and Socialist Revolutions are two
separate processes of socio-political transformation, each with its own
strategic objectives and motive forces.
Historically, and not as a political/ideological proposition, the Democratic
has preceded the Socialist Revolution.
It is because of this historical sequence that the challenge has faced the
Communist movement since the 19th century to answer what it should do to
take advantage of the Democratic Republic, born of the Democratic
Revolution, to advance the cause of socialism and the Socialist Revolution.
In this monograph we have cited two eminent leaders of the international
Communist movement, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin, giving their views
about this matter of the use by proletarian parties of the opportunities offered
by the democratic republic.
The SACP argues that this historic separation and sequencing between the
Democratic and Socialist Revolutions does not apply in the South African
case relative to the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) and the transition
to Socialism.
Practically, it asserts that it has a responsibility as a member of the Tripartite
Alliance to introduce socialist objectives into the NDR programme.
Put in other words, the SACP is arguing for the delegation to the Democratic
Revolution of some of the tasks of the Socialist Revolution.
This is why, among other proposals, it has been mouthing the strange slogan
for almost two decades – ‘Socialism is the future. Build it Now!’
In the context of Marxism-Leninism, it is absolutely impossible to understand
the demand by the SACP, which describes itself as a vanguard of the
proletariat, to ‘build socialism’ within the very bosom of a capitalist system.
The ANC is the principal political formation in the NDR and its leader.
As this independent formation, but Member of the Tripartite Alliance, the ANC
has its own transformation programme. Essentially this Programme says that
the task of the ANC is to work for the creation and building of a democratic,
non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa, based on the eradication
of the legacy of colonialism and apartheid.
The SACP argues that this Programme must be superseded by an Alliance
Programme which is committed to the perspective of South Africa’s advance
to socialism.
In this context it is opposed to the concept and practice of ‘the ANC-led NDR
and Alliance’.
In its place it demands the acceptance of the Alliance as a sovereign body
which is the ‘strategic political centre’ of the NDR, and therefore the leader of
the NDR.
This is what the proposed ‘Reconfiguration of the Alliance’ is intended to do –
to put in place policies, structures and procedures which, essentially, would
supersede the policies, structures and procedures of the current leader of the
NDR, the ANC.
The SACP also believes that as regards the ANC, for instance, it would be
possible for the National Executive Committee of the organisation, without
reference to National Conference, to adopt and allow the implementation of
programmes based on such a radical departure from the substantive policies
of the organisation.
SACP ROUTE TO SOCIALISM
The SACP is a Party of Socialism. Its historic task, as explained in the
Communist Manifesto is the “formation of the proletariat into a class,
overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, (and) conquest of political power by
the proletariat.”
It would be natural and rational to expect that once the National Democratic
Revolution achieved its political victory, to whose realisation the SACP played
an important part, the SACP would take advantage of the establishment of the
democratic republic to act as directed by the Communist Manifesto.
The SACP has, however, made it plain that this is no what it is going to do.
Rather, having convinced itself that “to advance, deepen and defend a
second radical phase of the NDR – (is) the most direct and shortest road to
socialism in our country’s historical conditions”, it has set itself the task to
‘capture’ the ANC and the democratic movement and use them to achieve
this advance to socialism.
In this context it has made the arrogant statement that:
We have also always believed that within our South African reality,
unless the working-class builds its hegemony in every site of power, and
unless socialist ideas, values, organisation and activism boldly assert themselves,
the NDR will lose its way and stagnate…
It accompanies this statement by observing that:
Party work within the ANC, within the wider Alliance and even from within
government will be largely ineffective if it is not backed by building working
class unity, power and hegemony, and campaigning and organisation across
a wide variety of working-class and popular struggles nationally AND critically
locally. Thus, building a powerful, social movement of the workers and poor is
an immediate apex priority and essential for the SACP.
The reference here to ‘working-class hegemony’, as well as in a similar
fashion in other SACP documents, is a misnomer.
This is because the SACP has still not accomplished the task set in the
Communist Manifesto – to achieve the ‘formation of the proletariat into a
class’ – a proletariat for itself.
The working class played a major and strategic role in the struggle to defeat
the apartheid regime and ensure the victory of the national liberation
movement. However, with this understood as explained in Marxism-Leninism,
this was, in the main, a brave and militant proletariat in itself, rather than the
proletariat for itself capable of achieving politico-strategic hegemony.
Accordingly, when the SACP talks about achieving ‘working class hegemony’
in contemporary society, it is in fact and in truth talking about ‘SACP
hegemony’ pretending that this was proletarian hegemony.
We can glean some of the specifics concerning ‘the proletariat in itself’, or
‘the proletariat into a class’ by looking at some of the SACP membership
figures presented at the 5th Special National Congress. These figures relating
to the total membership and the membership in the three biggest Provinces
show that:
- nationally, the workers (59 623) constitute 16.11% of the total membership
of the SACP; - in KZN, the workers constitute 10.2% of the Provincial SACP membership;
- in Gauteng, the workers constitute 12.4% of the Provincial SACP
membership; and, - in the Eastern Cape, the workers constitute 9.6% of the Provincial SACP
membership.
This tells the real story of how far the SACP has progressed in terms of ‘the
formation of the proletariat into a class’, which the Communist Manifesto
says is a task of all proletarian parties.
It is these relatively small numbers of ‘the proletariat in itself’, and perhaps a
few more who have not joined the SACP, to which the SACP refers when it
talks about working class hegemony.
The relative size of the working-class component in the membership of the
Communist Party serves as a useful indicator of the size of the pool within
society of the proletariat for itself or those advancing towards becoming part
of this proletariat for itself.
The smaller the proportion of the workers among the members of the
Communist Party, the smaller will be the numbers in society at large of what
the Communist Manifesto describes as the formation of the proletariat into a
class.
Accordingly, the membership figures of the SACP speak for themselves.
The foregoing states the main points concerning the essence of the
‘Reconfiguration of the Alliance’ demanded by the SACP.
In Marxist-Leninist terms, this proposed ‘reconfiguration’ amounts to an
attempt by the Party of Socialism to avoid its responsibilities as a vanguard
party of the proletariat and to delegate some tasks of the socialist revolution
to the national democratic movement.
The objective reality is that, practically, this national democratic movement
will not and cannot turn its own NDR programme into a socialist programme.
The ‘reconfiguration of the Alliance’ project will not work.
END PART 2 (FINAL PART 3 TO BE POSTED SHORTLY.)
Discover more from Radio Freedom
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
