Communist Cadres in all terrains and fronts of struggle ... Build Working Class Hegemony for a Solidarity Economy
Address to the Western Cape SACP Provincial Council
Blade Nzimande, General Secretary
18 March 2012
Let me welcome the holding of this Provincial Council as part of reporting back from our last Central Committee meeting and also to elaborate on the key challenges facing the SACP in the Western Cape.
The focus of the Central Committee message today will be on an assessment of the current global situation; advances and challenges in the national democratic revolution; the SACP in contemporary working class struggles; and the challenges facing the Party in this province.
The shifting (and changing) global balance of forces
When we met in July 2007 at our 12th National Congress we asserted that: "the global capitalist system, as we know it, is now approaching a series of systemic, perhaps conclusive, limitations. These limitations include physical, biological, human, social and economic dimensions." (South African Road to Socialism - SARS).
We noted, furthermore, that the contradictions were not peripheral, but were concentrated in the very heartlands of the system (US, EU, Japan) - although, part of the strategy of imperialism was to seek to displace its own internal crises to the periphery and semi-periphery. This displacement had been a key feature of what had been happening since the onset of the current long-wave crisis (beginning in 1973). But, we noted in 2007, that such a displacement was becoming increasingly difficult.
In short, the SACP accurately predicted what was to surprise most others in our country and internationally some months later - the financial crisis in the US that became partially evident in late 2007 and then developed into a full-blown economic crisis, the "Great Recession", the most severe global capitalist crisis since the Great Depression of the late-1920s and 30s.
We also noted in 2007 how the hegemonic global ideology of the previous decades was beginning to wobble. Neo-liberalism/monetarism had been the leading ideology in the context of the long-wave, post-1973 capitalist response to its own crisis. In 2007 we noted how neo-liberalism was itself in crisis - i.e. there was a growing ideological uncertainty within the ruling global elite - a symptom of the deepening objective crisis of the system.
Within months of our 12th Congress, global capitalism was to enter into a new more intensive phase of its long-wave crisis. It was sparked by rising oil prices (probably related to a peaking and plateauing in global oil production), and the sub-prime housing market collapse.
Given the globalised nature of the capitalist system, hardly any part of the world has been left untouched by the ongoing crisis. However, its impact has been felt unevenly and we are seeing a definite shift in the relative dynamism of different economies globally. In particular, some "developing" countries, like China, Brazil and India (and also a number of Gulf states), have increased their RELATIVE global economic (and therefore also political) strength.
Their RELATIVE economic strength has grown (relative to the historically dominant but now increasingly stagnant centres of capitalist accumulation), and it is likely to continue. However, a measure of caution is also required. They are all deeply embroiled within the global circuits of capital accumulation. China is the major holder of US government bonds, and of US dollars, and therefore any collapse of the US financial system will have a massive impact on China. China's recent industrialization has been built on an export-driven programme, in which, again, it is highly dependent upon markets in the US, EU and Japan and with stringent wage restraint at home.
The persistence of cycles of capitalist crises serves to underline our point that capitalism is incapable of meeting the needs of humanity, and therefore needs to be replaced by a more humane and rational socialist system! We are being proven daily of the relevance of our own slogan ‘Socialism is the future, Build it Now'! This further underlines the importance of both strengthening our Party as well as deepen international solidarity with the rest of the communist movement globally.
Post-1994 South Africa has confronted almost the inverse challenge - a RADICALLY UNEQUAL society in the midst of relatively advanced capitalist forces of production (dating back to the late 19th century - but somewhat under-capitalised in the last two decades of deepening apartheid crisis); thus strengthening the need to deepen the struggle for a radical restructuring of our economy in favour of the workers and the poor. The fact that the ANC itself is now calling for a second transition creates fertile conditions to deepen the struggle for such radical economic restructuring in favour of the workers and the poor.
Prior to the onset of the current global capitalist crises, one of its outposts - Latin America- had begun undergoing significant progressive advances with the emergence of left wing governments through the ballot. This marked a significant political crisis for neo-liberalism in this part of the world.
In the North of our own continent and large parts of the Middle East, we have seen popular uprisings by ordinary people, with the youth playing an especially significant role as it bears most of the brunt of the current global capitalist crisis. However what started as democratic expressions, largely because of the absence of an organized, progressive force representing these motive forces, now seems to be exploited by imperialism, through a combination of war and defense of its stooges, and now being turned into a massive shift in the balance of forces in favour of imperialism. Syria is in the midst of what is essentially a civil war sponsored and abetted by imperialism, the Libyan regime has been forcibly removed, and there are real threats of isolating and attacking Iran. The only real sin of Iran is that it has oil, and that of Syria is its consistent anti-Zionist stance!
The above is an illustration of the extent to which the more capitalism sinks into crisis the greedier it becomes and the greater the dangers of war.
Some key advances made (and challenges) over the past five years
- Dislodging of the 1996 class project, albeit its legacy is still a constraint on further advances we need to make
- Progressive Polokwane resolutions, incorporating many of the policy positions that we had been advancing for close onto a decade prior to that, including the decision on five priorities
- The incorporation of many of the Polokwane resolutions into the government's programme of action
- A vastly improved co-operative style of the ANC leadership, albeit heavily contested
- The significance of our Special Congress in laying the foundations for exposing the new tendency and the forging of a broader understanding of the dangers of this new tendency to both our movement and the national democratic revolution as a whole.
- At this Special Congress we warned and pledged in our declaration, and actually leading the way in this respect, that:
"at the outset of Congress, we agreed that it was our task as the SACP to carry forward the analysis of progress and challenges within our Party, and within our broader ANC-led Alliance. What has happened since our 2007 12th National Congress? What has happened since the ANC's 52nd National Conference in December 2007? We have noted the important gains made in consolidating Alliance unity. We have noted the fighting unity that was built around the April elections. Let us carry these gains down to every district and community of our country.
"We have also noted the early warning signs of a small but sometimes clamorous anti-communist, chauvinistic tendency in the ranks of our broader movement. Together, with all of our Alliance partners, we pledge to nip this tendency in the bud. We pledge to fight factionalism, not with factionalism, but with a principled programme of action. We pledge not to be unduly diverted, nor provoked by what will become an increasingly isolated and incoherent tendency. We shall defend our fundamental Communist principles of solidarity, of internationalism and of a robust rejection of all brands of chauvinism. We pledge, always, to be a disciplined force for unity in the heart of our broad revolutionary movement".
- It is this discipline of a vanguard Party that has contributed significantly towards the slowly emerging common understanding within our broader movement of the threat of this tendency to the unity of our movement and common purpose in consolidating our revolution.
- Our Party has also made a significant contribution in highlighting the dangers of corruption in society, exposing the class basis of most of this corruption, and the need to mobilise against it
- The growing appreciation of the role of the state in leading our developmental effort
- Despite contradictory pulls, the emergence of some determination to deal with the CST accumulation path - the establishment of the National Planning Commission, the adoption of an active Industrial Policy and New Growth Path, new emerging perspectives on the increased role of the state in mining and other sectors of the economy, a process to review some key aspects of BEE, including tackling the issue of fronting; renewed emphasis on investment into infrastructure and the formation of the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission to drive this infrastructure programme.
- Commitment by both the Alliance and government to move away from the willing buyer willing seller model of land reform, a key demand of the SACP over the past 8 years or so.
The above have a huge potential to roll back and finally defeat the neo-liberal agenda in broader society and within our own movement. All these advances are however still subject of intense class contestations and remain important sites of struggle going forward, and are key arenas for defending and deepening the national democratic revolution.
These advances are, of course, often undermined in practice by some of the weaknesses in the capacity of the state, not unrelated to the lack of investment in people development, the increasing tenderization of the state and the corruption that this has generated, as well as the emergence of a new tendency and tenderpreneurship preventing the rapid consolidation of a disciplined, developmental state.
In many ways the new tendency, despite radical sounding noises from within its ranks, is a reaction to a policy trajectory that threatens the accumulation interests of a narrow stratum of an aspirant bourgeoisie within our movement. This is in essence the real class content of the concept of ‘economic freedom', whose primary focus is ‘racial ownership', as opposed to economic emancipation of the overwhelming majority of our people.
The struggle of the new tendency is a struggle for a tendered state as against a developmental state. The primary mode of accumulation of the new tendency is the capture of state tenders, including in corrupt ways, and secondarily operating as dependent extensions, like the rest of BEE accumulation, of established sections of the capitalist class. This form of capital accumulation in developing countries, as history teaches us, has often become reliable domestic (and domesticated) allies of imperialism.
The policy breakthroughs, especially since 2007 and 2009, are also a reflection of the correctness of our perspectives contained in our Medium Term Vision. It is a strategic and programmatic perspective grounded on waging struggles in all sites of power, both inside and outside the state. It is the combination of mass and progressive state interventions, with the working class playing its vanguard role that will deepen the progressive character and direction of the national democratic revolution.
The above (policy) advances require the mobilization of the motive forces of the revolution, with the working class in the lead, to transform these policy advances into concrete developmental and transformational outcomes. This requires the mobilization of the working class, both inside and outside the state. What we said in our 2007 programme in this regard remains valid, that, "People's power... reinforcing (and reinforced by) democratic government are key factors in the struggle to advance the NDR".
It is on this score that the notion of ‘civil society', with all its liberal connotations and programmatic implications, fails to assist us in mobilizing the motive forces of the national democratic revolution to consolidate and deepen the many (policy) gains we have made. This liberal notion seeks to locate the motive forces outside of the state and outside of the critical struggles inside the state, by elevating the struggle outside (and often in irritation if not oppositionist stance to government) as the only legitimate forms of struggles. This has the effect of abandoning the terrain of the state to the very same forces that wish to capture the state for elite agendas. Such a posture, wittingly or unwittingly, plays into the hands of neo-liberalism.
However, the above advances can perhaps best be described as significant policy breakthroughs that have not as yet translated into the radical restructuring of our economy in favour of the workers and the poor. It is for this reason that despite them, some of the structural features of our economy remain intact:
- high levels of unemployment and poverty
- high levels of dependence on welfare grants to cushion the majority of our people from some of the worst forms of poverty
- the continued dependent and narrow character of black economic empowerment
- High levels of illiteracy and a lowly educated and poorly skilled population
It is precisely on this contradictory terrain of significant policy advances and the persisting realities of colonialism of a special type economic trajectory that the working class needs to deepen the class struggle to turn the policy advances into the structural transformation of South African society and the economy. This can only be done if the working class properly grasps and builds on the many important advances, and does not allow setbacks and some of the structural realities to lead to strategic and tactical confusion.
The SACP has a particular role to mobilise and educate the working class as a whole to properly understand the challenges of the period and the appropriate strategies and tactics. In doing so indeed the SACP must itself learn from the experiences and daily struggles of the working class. This means that we must not be immobilized or blinded by the persistence of the key structural features of our economic and social trajectory into losing sight of very significant policy and political shifts that are critical platforms for deepening the struggle for thoroughgoing transformation
The SACP and contemporary working class struggles: Communist cadres on all fronts and terrains of struggle
Throughout the 90 years of our existence as a Party, we are proud of the fact that we have been an integral part of and mostly leading numerous workers' struggles. For all these decades, we have been part of the evolution of the trade union movement in our country, culminating in the formation and subsequent growth of COSATU. Communists have been part of all the major working class battles for better wages and working conditions, without nevertheless reducing the Party into a trade union. No other political party comes anywhere near the Party's role in building a progressive trade union movement in our country.
Building and strengthening a red trade union movement
From the early 1920s into the 1930s we pioneered the building of the progressive trade union movement in our country. We were part of the leadership of the first massive trade union to representing mainly black workers in our country, the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU). Communists were in the forefront of building that union to become the largest in the country at the time. It was only after Clemens Kadalie, at the behest and influence of white liberals, decided to expel communists that the ICU experienced a sharp decline and eventual collapse in the early 1930s.
This must indeed serve as a lesson to the ‘modern day Kadalies', often disguised as revolutionaries, but trying to break the relationship between the SACP and COSATU, that, like their predecessor Clemens Kadalie before, they will not succeed! The presence and stature of the SACP amongst the workers of our country is not out of the generosity of individual trade union leaders, but as a direct result of the work communists do in the trade union movement.
Most of the very first progressive trade unions to emerge in the 1930s and 1940s were as a direct result of communist organization. Prominent communists, especially JB Marks, in the struggles against mining capital, led the Great Mineworkers Strike of 1946. One of the enduring achievements of the SACP in building the progressive trade union movement was to build a movement that understood the close relationship between daily shop-floor struggles and the broader national liberation struggle. It is this tradition that has continued to be dominant in the progressive trade union movement today.
Communists played an important role in the struggles towards the formation of COSATU in 1985. This role was played by communists as both members of the party and as leaders in the trade union movement itself. The struggle towards the formation of Cosatu confronted two particular challenges, one from inside and another from outside the trade union movement. From outside the trade union movement, the formation of Cosatu, like many of the other unions before, faced the brutal oppression of the apartheid regime, which tried to prevent the re-emergence of the trade union movement especially after the Durban 1973 strikes.
Attempts to smash the trade union movement combined a variety of methods, including assassinations of trade union leaders and attempts to form alternative, reactionary trade unions, the most significant of which was the Inkatha-aligned UWUSA, whose formation was funded by the apartheid police at the behest of Adriaan Vlok. Communists were indeed central in the defence and rebuilding of the progressive trade union movement. The apartheid regime also used vigilante groups sponsored by the apartheid police and army, like the A-Team in Chesterville, Durban, and the Witdoeke here in the Western Cape, to try and destroy the trade union movement.
The second and internal threat, to the consolidation of a progressive trade union movement, was an old tradition that goes back to the early years of the trade union movement in our country. This tendency has taken many forms, from the Trotskyite Unity Movement to the Workerist Tendency of the 1970s. This workerist tendency had become most influential though not dominant in FOSATU, the immediate predecessor to COSATU. It a tendency that seeks to insulate workers' struggles from broader struggles of transformation and/or seek to use the trade union movement as a political party and its only political home, and often very hostile to the broad liberation movement, especially the SACP. Its mission has always been to break the trade union movement from especially the ANC and the SACP.
Much as the formation of Cosatu in 1985 marked, amongst other things, the defeat of workerism and the consolidation of Congress politics, this workerist tendency was not entirely wiped out, and it has always lingered. It currently is resuscitating its unprincipled attack on the SACP. It is important for the SACP to distinguish between the existence of such a tendency from COSATU as a federation. Instead the SACP must seek to deepen its relationship with all the COSATU affiliates and the federation as a whole, as a critical relationship in the struggle to deepen the NDR and socialism in our country.
The latest threat to the progressive trade union movement is that of what we have referred to as business unionism - the co-option of trade union leaders or their immediate family by business interests often working through capitalists that have an interest in capturing union business. We must always bear in mind that whilst for workers, their trade unions are their primary weapons on the shop-floor against exploitation, for capital trade unions are huge sources of business. Today unions control literally billions of rands of their pension and provident funds, medical aid, insurance and funeral policies.
It is for this reason that they are the targets of capitalists, especially in the financial and other related sectors. Working together with the trade union movement we must seek to defeat the scourge of business unionism. We must fight against business unionism in the same way and with the same vigour as we fight tenderpreneurship. In fact the two are the same - it is corruption! If we do not fight business unionism, we really run the risk of watching the trade union movement being destroyed right in front of us.
The SACP must also support the initiatives of some of the Cosatu affiliates to work closely with the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). This is a federation that is made up of class-conscious trade unions, who are committed to a struggle for socialism as the only system that will end workers' exploitation.
But what are some of the key working class struggles that the SACP needs to be taking up in earnest in the current period?
Communists and current working class struggles
The SACP must deepen its work with the trade union movement in support of the goal of decent work. We must stand with the trade union movement against all forms of casualization, including labour brokers. We must also deepen our relations around the struggles for a living wage.
However, it is important for the SACP to bring into the struggles for a living wage the struggle for a decent social wage as well. A social wage constitutes other forms of social and economic support for the working class that does not necessarily come in the form of direct income. There are a number of elements of the social wage that are also a critical component in the struggle for building a solidarity economy.
Access to affordable or free health care and education for the working class is a very important component of a social wage. It is for this reason that we welcome government's continued commitment to the introduction of a national health insurance scheme. This means that the working class must also intensify the struggle against capitalist vultures in the private health care sector that are opposed to the NHI, because they profit from people's illness. Struggling for access to higher education for children of workers who do not qualify for NSFAS yet cannot afford to pay for higher education is another important struggle to be waged together with the working class.
The radical transformation of apartheid human settlements in order to ensure, amongst others, that we develop mixed residential areas so that the workers are closer to their places of work. This must be accompanied by a struggle for investment into safe, affordable and accessible public transport, as many workers in South Africa stay very far from their workplaces.
A critical component of a social wage is housing subsidy and assistance to the working class. We know that many workers do not qualify for what we call ‘RDP' housing, and yet they also cannot access bonds from the private banks. We must welcome government's commitment to assist this category of workers through the R1bn bank guarantees for low-cost housing. However, we need to intensify the struggle for the banks not to use this housing loan guarantee to avoid investing in low-cost housing, and do so only if they get a guarantee. The banks must honour their commitments in the Financial Sector Charter to fund low-cost housing whether there is a government guarantee or not!
One critical link to the struggle for a social wage is our campaign for the transformation of the financial sector, as well as government's commitment to increased investment into infrastructure. It is absolutely essential that the working class, especially organized workers, take up the issue of how and where the trillions of rands of their own pension and provident funds are invested. It is for this reason that the SACP calls upon NEDLAC to convene the 2nd financial sector summit during the first half of this year.
Skills development is also a critical dimension in the transformation of South Africa's workplaces and to empower the working class and strengthen its bargaining power on the shop floor. Particular attention also needs to be placed on the revolutionary role of public sector unions to drive, amongst others, the transformation of the state.
Organising beyond organized workers
The struggles of organized workers, important as they are, do not constitute the entirety of working class struggles. Whilst organized workers remain the most organized and powerful stratum of the working class, in our conditions this is a necessary but not sufficient condition for building working class power and hegemony. Different strata of the working class are located differently in South African society (as casualised workers, as hawkers, marginalized and unorganized domestic and farmworkers, etc). The working class is also organized in a range of other fronts and formations, including in stokvels, burial societies, civic organisations and so on. It is the responsibility of the SACP, if it is to be a true vanguard of the working class, to organize the working class as a whole, and in all the different terrains and fronts. It is only the SACP that is best placed to perform this role.
In addition, it is also important to remember that, working class struggles are not only waged on the shop-floor, nor necessarily only in the economic sphere. This would be economism that the SACP must constantly guard against. Working class struggles must be waged on a range of other terrains - in the state, in communities, ideologically and through international solidarity. That is why our Medium Term Vision - that of seeking to build working class hegemony in all key sites of power and terrains of struggle is so important for the SACP to play its vanguard role. Hence the importance of communist cadres to be in all terrains and fronts of struggle: in the state, the economy, communities and the workplaces.
Similarly, society is also composed of various social sectors like the youth and women, and these are fronts in which communists must have a presence. Class organization of youth and women is also important. For example in relation to the youth our YCL has a critically important role to play, paying particular attention to the organization of young workers, students and the unemployed youth. The organization of women and the struggles against gender inequalities and partriarchy is also an important front of struggle. Indeed communist cadres must be in all terrains and fronts of struggle!
Building the Capacity of the SACP as a Vanguard Party and its Tasks in the Western Cape
The most critical aspect for our Party Programme moving forward is numerical and qualitative growth, relevance, visibility and asserting of the SACP as the vanguard of South Africa's working class. This fundamentally requires the professionalization of the Party through dedicated cadre development and intensified SACP led mass activism. During the next five years we must aim to reach and exceed our target of 500 000 members.
It is indeed a huge challenge to grow the Party to this size and at this pace, and we need to be acutely aware of some of the potential dangers and pitfalls. The method of recruitment and building of quality will require careful attention and improved methods on this front. For instance, at least 70% of the Party cadres must be drawn from the ranks of organized workers, with a strong focus on building organic intellectuals and significantly improve the ideological capacity of our membership.
Amongst other things, particular attention will have to be paid to the development of leadership collectives at all levels and a strong political ‘commissariat'. The ideological strengthening of the district level leadership collectives as the foundation for building quality branch leadership is a priority in this regard. Related to the above is the need to ensure that our own activism should contribute towards a more activist ANC, rather than isolated Party activism. It is therefore important that our VD based branches, and indeed all other upper structures of the SACP actively engage the ANC structures into our own campaigning. This will also greatly contribute in building a united Alliance from below.
The principal tasks of the SACP in this province must include the continuous and ongoing work amongst both the African and coloured working classes. This means that we need to build voting district (VD) based branches in both the African and Coloured residential areas. In particular we must seek to deepen our relationship with organized workers, in particular those organized under COSATU. Deepening joint political education with Cosatu affiliates is an absolute necessity.
All this work must build towards an offensive to dislodge the DA in this province and the City of Cape Town. Defeat the DA and working towards an ANC electoral victory is an imperative to consolidate the gains of the national democratic revolution. Our approach as the SACP must be informed by the fact that the Coloured working class is not naturally affiliated to the DA. Rather we need to patiently expose the agenda of the DA as fundamentally opposed to that of the working class, whether coloured or African.
The DA, like all liberals, supports the casualization of the working class including its support for labour brokers. This is because the core of the DA is made up of a white minority that is scared of majority rule in South Africa, and is threatened by all measures aimed at advancing the interests of black people as a whole. That is why the DA is opposed to affirmative action, to skilling of the black working class, and all measures being taken by the ANC government to transform our society for the overwhelming majority of our people.
It is also important that we expose the hypocrisy of the DA and its liberal ilk for what they are. Liberals only opportunistically cherry pick issues on which they are to be seen to be friends of the workers, especially those issues that can be used to wage an offensive against government and the majoritarian character of our democracy. That is why the DA would be opposed to the e-toll system (of which we also have a problem), whilst they are imposing a toll-gate on the people of Cape Town here in Chapman's Peak
Intensifying organization of the working class will further help expose that the agenda of the DA and that of the working class are fundamentally opposed!
Issued by the SACP, March 18 2012
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