SACP December 2020 Central Committee Political Report
PUT PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS – MAKE 2021 A YEAR OF MASS ACTIVISM
INTRODUCTION
The SACP has for many decades set itself the task of being a socialist vanguard - not by mere declaration, and not through entryism that leaves the slog work of organisation to others, but by being both an independent organisation and an active force within a broader national liberation movement.
The Party’s contribution to struggle has been at its most effective when a relatively mobilised, organised and campaigning national-popular movement is present and the organisational, ideological, and resource capacities of the Party are attuned to this reality.
Are these factors present in today’s reality? Indeed, at the same time going forward, the SACP is increasingly going to be faced with new realities and challenges that we have not encountered before. Already there are vastly different challenges facing us post 1994 that we have had to take into account in building a SACP rooted in current realities, primarily guided by our programmatic slogan, “Socialism is the Future, Build it Now!”
The current domestic and global situation is characterised by a fourfold crisis of capitalism – a pandemic health crisis, economic crisis, social reproduction crisis and climate change crisis. The second surge of covid19 is upon us. The economic recovery remains contested and inadequate to the size of the economic challenges and inequality.
The NDR is immediately threatened from two fronts – the neo-liberal austerity agenda and primitive accumulation through looting and state capture networks, and the motive forces are not hegemonic, organisationally or ideologically strong. The current state of the motive forces of our revolution raises questions as to our ability to re-assert the strategy of the NDR as a hegemonic programme. And this is where the SACP is currently required to play its vanguard role
We need to be asking ourselves:
When is our watershed moment? What will the convergence of subjective weaknesses in the movement and the objective conditions of the economic crisis over the next 18 months bring? What are likely results? How do we influence this?
As we reflect in this Political Report on these issues, we will conclude that we need to revive our slogan “Put people before Profits” as we embark on joint mass activism with Cosatu and the trade union movement. The huge need and urgency for SACP/Cosatu led mass mobilisation in the movement and beyond must reconfigure the Alliance through shifting the balance of forces in the liberation movement and also lay a firm basis for a left progressive front! There is an important space opening up for decisive left mass intervention and leadership on issues affecting workers and poor of our country. The urgency, nature and shape of this mass campaigning, or reclaiming the activism of the NDR, must occupy centre stage in this Central Committee meeting!
In fact, our 2021 programme of action, our centenary programme, must focus on this - build on the pillars of the Red October campaign, and the struggle to place People before Profits!! This will talk to a number of immediate challenges we face, whether it’s the attack by the Labour Appeal Court on collective bargaining, the second surge of covid19, the path to economic reconstruction and recovery, the hunger and poverty of the working class, the Engen Refinery explosion and pollution in Wentworth and elsewhere, the acquisition and roll out of a Covid19 vaccine, and many other challenges facing the workers and poor! This is an important anti-capitalist slogan that can anchor a lot of our work.
We have and continue to argue that the NDR requires a progressive national movement/ organisation to lead it. It is clear that we are facing either a possible massive reconfiguration of our movement or a further descent into fragmentation. Our strategic and tactical approach must ensure that it is the massive reconfiguration that prevails, and we are clear that this can only be done through mass activism and, where possible, under covid19 mass action. As the SACP we cannot have our cake and eat it, we have to be deliberately active in ANC structures in our own right as members, and guided by the Party’s perspectives, if we are to attain reconfiguration of our Alliance!
The combined negative impact of the more than 25 years of neoliberalism, Aids Denialism and state capture/ corruption in our post 1994 era, has in many respects dampened the faith and hope of our people in the path of the NDR! This sits on top of the relative demobilisation of the people through the disbanding of the mass democratic movement, which has reduced the people’s sense of agency.
Therefore, one of the immediate tasks of the revolution is to reignite the hope and faith of our people in the correctness of the NDR. This can only be done through the masses’ own actions and activism, by beginning to feel that they are the masters of their own destiny. It is incumbent on this Central Committee to be innovative and shape our concept and practice of mass activism under the conditions of 2020 and 2021.
This is not a time in which marches of 20 000 women can or should be organised. It is perhaps a time in which action need to be locally based, and well covered in social media agit-prop. Cde Mzala taught us that revolution is achieved through the agency of the people of the working class and its allies themselves, not by those fighting on behalf of the people. This is so applicable now! Let’s make 2021 the year of mass activism by the workers and the poor, leading to a broader front of left/progressive forces.
Fourfold Crisis of Capitalism
Covid19 Pandemic
The Party has welcomed the newly announced tightening of restrictions and it is imperative that Party Provinces, Districts and Branches contribute to the adherence to these restrictions, particularly in the four provinces that are leading the second wave, the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. Inter-provincial travel that is part of our festive season practice may result in this pattern changing drastically in January of next year.
For the first time in this pandemic, most of the new infections are among young people particularly those in the age group of 15 to 19 years and the YCLSA and the PYA should lead in the attitudinal step change necessary to protect the lives of young people, and through them of all of us.
As of 14 December 2020, the covid19 trend shifted from 31 new cases on 18 March, to a peak of 13 104 new cases on 23 July, dropping to 722 on 15 September, and increasing to 5163 new cases on 14 December 2020. It is predicted that within weeks we will be back at the July peak. In fact on 16 December the infection rate more than doubled and increased by a whopping 8000 cases. The total number of cases is now more than 900 000, with total deaths of 23,451 people and 763,000 have recovered. Our recovery rate is nearly two and a half times better than the global recovery when calculated per million people, reflecting the sustained good management of the health care of those who are infected. But our deaths are double the global figure per 1 million, reflecting the extent of co- morbidities and the low level of our people’s immune systems.
The impact of contagious disease pandemic such as covid19 falls disproportionately on the working class and poor, on those who suffer the burden of the gross inequality. Even the impact of restrictions has a different impact on the working class. A family of ten in a 3 roomed RDP house invites some friends and they socialise where? – normally in the public park or the beach – not anymore. The bourgeoisie sets up their party right on the rolling lawns of their mansions, contains the number to the 250 for outside gatherings and the party happens! The working class uses public transport, the bourgeoisie drives their cars – compounded by distance travelled given the class and racial spatial design of our cities and towns! We must, as we engage with restrictions, consider carefully how they can be complied with by the working class.
It is clear from recent unscientific statements by the Chief Justice that a major public education campaign, starting immediately, to explain the vaccine and to encourage vaccination will be critical. The readiness of South Africans to hold onto unscientific, idealist, and backward explanations is a threat not just to the management of the covid19 pandemic. It is a threat to our ability to cohere the people of this country around a materialist analysis and a science-based future.
There are four dimensions that the Party must focus on – firstly, we must contribute to the public education campaign about the nature of the virus, the importance of washing hands, wearing masks and keep social distance; secondly, our analysis must focus on the impact of the management of this pandemic on the working class and rural poor and ensure that this impact is mitigated; thirdly, we must continue to articulate the importance of prioritising lives of people over the creation of wealth, without obviously being reckless with our county’s economic future; and fourthly, we must engage on the procurement of the vaccine and the plan for the immunisation to ensure that the most vulnerable are protected, including frontline health workers, those with comorbidities, and that the working class is not marginalised by the wealthy in the access to the vaccine. Already research shows that the US dollar billionaires have increased their profits by One trillion dollars! The big digital companies have also amassed billions of dollars in profits just this year alone.
Economic Crisis and Recovery Economic recovery and economic growth and development are bedevilled by the twin enemies of the austerity/ neoliberal agenda and sustained primitive accumulation through looting. The SACP posture is that our fight has to be on both of these two fronts. This posture that we are both against austerity/neo-liberalism and corruption/ parasitic networks is resonating well with a range of left forces that we are engaging with, and we have resolved to put more emphasis on the alternative to these two trajectories as articulated in our document, “Going to the Roots” and in our Bua Komanisi 13(1) and 13(2).
Austerity based economic policy, the neo-liberal offensive, is going full steam ahead. The budget cuts in the social services sector to fund SAA is designed to provoke outrage that spurs on the privatisation agenda as the alternative to fiscal funding of SOEs. The agenda is: Support neoliberal policy or we cut social services. The Alliance never said find the money from SAA in other government departments. It is not true that Ministers agreed on the cuts in their budgets. The budgeting process is not a negotiated process, it is a Treasury imposed process. Unless there is action, the neo-liberal posture of the national treasury will take us into deep crisis. While we must demand action against the Minister of Finance for the manner in which the election manifesto is undermined, we need to recognise that the institution of National Treasury has been built over the years by the IMF and World Bank. It may be a tactical discussion that is required about how we deal with this, but we cannot allow the Minister of Finance to continue like this and not be reigned in.
The recent and current developments at the SABC over the past month are a reflection of this neo-liberal agenda. The Chair of Board has been part of the state capture networks, but at the same time is very keen to retrench, and what is emerging is a strange opportunist linkage between the neoliberal posture and the fight back campaign.
The Minister of Finance continues to say, with no foundation, that the public service wage bill is the biggest single enemy. The Party will not be silent on this. We recognise that this is going to lead to huge conflict inside the Movement as factions position themselves on this matter in their own opportunistic interests. The Party posture has been that government cannot renege on an agreement, and that this year’s increase must be paid. The Labour Appeal Court has this week dealt a decisive blow to the bargaining council. The trade union movement, fully supported by the Party, has a major task ahead to cohere and defend the entire collective bargaining system, not just in the public sector, but across the entire economy.
The challenge of negotiations, in both the public and the private sectors, in a period of economic hardship is now compounded by the very institution of collective bargaining being undermined. Negotiations going forward have to engage the hard question of how to sustain the current level of employment in the current economic and financial situation, given the massive unemployment that forces such hardship on the working class and the lower middle strata. How do we maintain current employment while also reducing unemployment? The solidarity compact that South Africa needs is going to be very hard to craft and Cosatu has a critical role to play in providing leadership in this. Capital is taking advantage of the current government posture to hit hard on the workers. The government posture that compromise is needed to save the economy is not getting support from capital. The programme to create jobs needs to be driven by government and the non-funding or under-funding of the Presidential Employment Stimulus is of particular concern.
The destruction caused by state capture goes far beyond what we fully realise. The damage to the institutions of the public sector is profound. The loss of capacity from the state over the years is significant. There has been enormous destruction of black professional and managerial talent, either through active participation in corruption or through victimisation by those opposed to, to trying to fight, corruption. The current exposure of what has been taking place is impacting on the ability to recruit and retain capable and ethical skills in the public sector. As an example, in the process of trying to finalise the NSFAS Board, which we determined must have an actuary on it, three actuaries refused to serve on any SOE Board. Progressive professionals, with the technical skills we so need, are running away from serving in the state.
The digital industrial revolution, compounded by covid19, and the new forms of accumulation are changing the future of work, the nature of the workplace, and we are seeing a growing informal economy. The working class in the formal workplace is shrinking and the informal economy is growing. The significance of mobilising and organising in the informal economy in the covid19 recovery period cannot be over emphasised. The developments in relation to policy on social and solidarity economy and public employment programmes must be championed as building blocks of a non-capitalist option. The Presidential Employment Stimulus programme can lay a firm basis if approached from a developmental and bottom-up perspective.
Social reproduction crisis
The pandemic has shone an intense spotlight on the social impact of inequality and capitalist exploitation on the lives of the working class and rural poor. Frederich Engels, born 250 years ago on 27 November 1770, analysed the conditions of the English working class – not too different in many respects from today’s South African working- class conditions. The lives of working-class families and communities in South Africa today reflect the impact of 30 years of neo-liberal undermining of the NDR, manifest in hunger, disease, violence and GBV, inadequate accommodation, unclean and unhygienic environments, and lack of access to safe and affordable water and power. Our Red October Campaign is focusing on the manifestations of this crisis of social reproduction and we are deepening our analysis and developing our policy position on these issues in a forthcoming Bua Komanisi 13(3) on social reproduction.
The alienation of the working class from the means of production results in little capacity for self-reliance, in families being dependent on wages for social reproduction, for being able to feed, clothe, care for and accommodate the family. It is this alienation that our approach to the social reproduction crisis must break, and in that we lay the foundations of socialism. While we campaign and organise for access to land, whether backyard or small plots or full-size farms, and the growing of food, we must also campaign for the sustaining of the Special Disaster Relief Grant until the Universal Basic Income Grant (UBIG) is funded and implemented. The ideological and financial battles about UBIG will be intense – on the one hand the neoliberal agenda will argue there is no money for it, on the other hand the fight- back campaign will opportunistically argue that it must be implemented. The UBIG struggle will not be one on the ideological or fiscal terrain – it will see the light of day when mass activism on a clear set of demands for the extension of the SDRG and the implementation of the UBIG is felt in the halls of Government, in the corridors of Parliament, in the seats of power. This is a fundamental element of our Red October Campaign against hunger and for health.
Environmental and Climate Change crisis
The impact of global warming caused largely by Green House Gases, the worst being CO2 emissions, is visible in South African extreme weather patterns over the past 5 years. Way before covid19, there was a deep crisis in South Africa’s rural areas caused by the extreme weather events. The drought in the Free State, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and even parts of KZN, as we also see in countries in the west of Southern African, has been more intense than previously, negatively impacting on food production, on job losses, on the economies of rural towns. In the eastern part of the country the impact has seen way more intense floods than in the past, which have destroyed houses, washed away and killed people, destroyed food production. If we move a little north in the east of the Southern African region, we find in 2019 a frequency and intensity of cyclones that put previous winds and storms in the shade. The Inter- governmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has identified 5 key drivers of the change in nature: the conversion of ever more land with forests, wetlands, and grasslands into agriculture, mining, infrastructure and urban expansion; the over exploitation of animals and plants
– notable the over-fishing of the sea and the logging of forests; climate change with the impacts on all other ecosystems growing every more significant; the pollution of air, water and soil by industry, mining, industrial agriculture, sewage, plastic and consumer wastes; and the mass transport of invasive species of plants and animals into local habitats. It is therefore around these drivers that we should be focusing our attention.
The issues of sustainable energy security, of the green economy and a just transition from fossil fuel-based economy must be embedded in our economy recovery programme. The readiness for management of natural disasters moving out of a period of ongoing drought to one with the potential for floods, and waterborne disease, becomes an important objective. The positive impact of the economic closure during covid19 lockdowns on the health of the environment and of wildlife must be a wakeup call to us all.
The explosion at the Engen Refinery in Wentworth, the Transnet crude oil spill into the Umbilo River, and the fuel tanker accident that claimed 12 lives, all taking place in KZN in the past 3 months, have brought to the fore the impact of the fuel industry on air pollution, environmental damage, and the impact on people and animals. The Wentworth community daily endures foul-smelling air, is regularly exposed to toxic gases, causing asthma, coughing, chest pain, choking, bronchitis, symptoms such as skin irritations, nausea and headaches. It appears that cancer, congenital disabilities and neurological damage are possible long-term impacts of this pollution. The Medical Research Council has pointed out that the area has the highest concentration of leukemia and asthma, and there are other scientific reports on pollution about that area.
South Africa has 5 large oil refineries, which convert crude oil, coal, or natural gases into fuel (including petrol, diesel, paraffin, kerosene). There is Caltex in Tableview, Cape Town; Engen in Wentworth, Durban; NATREF in Sasolburg; and the Shell and BP SAPREF refineries in Prospecton, Durban. It is not the bourgeoisie that surrounds these refineries and is put at risk by their location let alone by the lack of emission control. Groundwork, an NGO based in Pietermaritzburg, has been working with the “refinery communities” (the South Durban community, Tableview community, and the Sasolburg community) over an extended period of time. It is high time the SACP takes up the issue of air quality and pollution related illness in earnest. Enough is enough on this matter, and we must draw a red line. This must be our launch campaign to tackle environmental issues head on as is required of us by the South African Road to Socialism. Let this be initiated by Moses Mabhida Province but this must be a national campaign.
The pollution of these refineries is but one aspect of the Co2 and greenhouse gas emissions problem caused by dependence on the fossil fuel industry and the lack of implementation of a just transition strategy. The Just Transition to clean energy and the immediate reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the reduction of global warming and the control of climate change links very directly to our Red October campaign. The Just Transition must be of concern to the Party. Climate change and environmental degradation is an area of work that the Alliance has not paid sufficient attention to, and which globally is a critical left platform. The Party must consider how we join forces with organisations already well established in the environmental justice terrain of struggle in order to strengthen the protection of working-class communities, to strive for a cleaner environment and greener economy in South Africa and hence to secure a sustainable future.
International Balance of Forces Overview
In reflecting on the contemporary world and the world correlation of class forces, SACP assessments in the recent past have remained correct. Our political program, the South African Road to Socialism (SARS), said “global capitalism is beginning to approach absolute limits that are physical, biological, human and economic”. The global capitalist crisis that started in 2007 remains part of our objective reality, now exacerbated by the global covid19 pandemic.
The covid19 pandemic only exposed further the inadequacy of bourgeois ruling class strategies and that our mainly profit driven healthcare systems in countries are woefully lacking in social containment of runaway pandemics.
We have correctly asserted that this devastating structural downturn has to be tackled from its root cause. Marx and Engels underlined that, unless we locate the resolution of the current crisis in production and its reproduction, it is not possible to overcome the inherent contradictions of the capitalist system between the social character of production and the private nature of appropriation of its products.
Key features of the world situation today
The IMF in its June Global Economic Outlook projects a negative 4.9% growth in 2020, meaning world economies will contract. Growth has been revised by 2% points downwards from the April 2020 figures. The South African economy would have contracted by a whopping 8% this year. Although in 2021 a 5% overall growth is projected, we must be aware that this 5% does not even get us back to the level at the beginning of 2020. Even if we achieve this rate, our country will fall far short of overcoming pre-Covid crisis growth levels and overcome the recession. The US economy contracted 8% this year and will grow moderately at 4.5% in 2021. This is in the light of its 3 trillion dollar deficit and a weak industrial output. Income inequality will rise, further slowing demand and will likely worsen unemployment. Weak demand will plummet Global trade by 11.9% this year.
Clearly it is the richest billionaires of the world who have profited handsomely during covid19. American billionaires have increased their wealth a whopping one fifth or $1 trillion, whilst millions of people across the world have had to shoulder the burden of job losses and poverty with many foreclosures likely to deepen their misery.
The Economist estimates there are around 350,000 to 1.3 million viruses carried by birds and animals with potential human transmission due to ecological destruction of their habitats by oil and energy multinationals.
As we marked the 75th anniversary of the victory of the Patriotic war against Nazi-fascism, we are also concerned about the false anti-communist historical narrative which equates communism to fascism, which although emanating predominantly in western European countries, remain v deeply rooted amongst major sections of right-wing forces in South Africa. This narrative is bandied about by certain intellectual forces who vulgarise Marxism with the aim to negate it, including the reactionary right-wing forces that physically ensure the destruction of symbols of communist achievements, notably the vandalised Marx Memorial statue in the Highgate cemetery and pulling down Lenin statues in countries like Ukraine, Poland and others.
Let’s not forget that in Poland, Janus Walus is revered for his role in assassinating the SACP’s late General Secretary Comrade Chris Hani by the Polish right-wing.
There are several notable developments in various regions in the world which calls for serious ongoing analysis.
A closer look on the role of the US in the World
Although with varying influence, the current US attitudes towards Russia and China do not point to any significant change in American foreign policy towards the two countries. The persisting NATO encirclement of Russian territory is developing into a new cold war. It is the same with China against which the American administration has instituted a range of hostile trade measures. It is evident that to counter its hegemonic decline, the United States is likely to use its political and military force to defend its economic interests.
The border disputes between China and India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), have been watered down by diplomatic initiatives. A full escalation is unlikely if these are maintained. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) described the situation in June as “serious”, after the death of many soldiers, and has encouraged a peaceful resolution of the conflict. There is a merit for strengthening relations with Indian communist parties.
The potential US targeting of 80 Iraqi sites from a list drawn by the US which it links to Iran-backed forces will simply deepen already existing sectarian tensions in the Middle East. Whether it carries out these plans remains to be seen. On the other hand, the resignation of Palestine from the Arab League following the bloc’s failure to condemn the UAE and Bahrain agreements to normalise relations with Israel has deepened the contradictions in the region. Palestine correctly considers this a betrayal which will strengthen the occupation. The deals were condemned by Libya, Iran, and Turkey amongst others with the backing of many Western European regimes and those in the region such as Oman.
Overall American attitudes towards Latin American countries remains vividly aggressive in pursuance of the obsolete Monroe Doctrine that Latin America is its backyard. It retains its policy of illegal sanctions, blockades and regime change.
The US has stepped up its interventions in the region, with emboldened actions in Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela but is also facing a fierce challenge with a resulting diminution of its power in this region to control these countries and clearly a sign of its declining power overall.
Latin America
Developments in this region need to be carefully studied, with increasingly complex developments taking place.
The Venezuelan December 6 parliamentary elections were touted as very important by various class and political forces, especially for the Bolivarian project.
Though parts of the violent right- wing opposition of United States (US) that installed ‘president’ Juan Guaido boycotted the elections at the instruction of the State Department, some took part and won a few seats in the new parliament. The US, the European Union (EU) and the Lima Group had already declared the elections as fraudulent and didn’t send observers, or any form of monitoring to Venezuela, though broad section of groups and parliamentarians and others went to Venezuela. The ANC and the SACP were part of a sizeable African delegation invited by the elections commission, the CNE (National Electoral Council).
The PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezeula) alliance that included a range of left-wing forces retook control of the national assembly winning 189 of the 277-seat assembly after garnering 68% of the vote. The right-wing which had controlled the assembly for the last 5 years, won only 28% of the vote losing control of the legislative body. The newly founded Popular Revolutionary Alternative which was headed by the Communist Party of Venezuela won around 3% and returned 1 deputy.
The elections were however also marked by a high abstention rate. With Huge Chavez winning the presidency back in 1989, Venezuelans have placed a high premium on presidential elections - which are highly contested with high voter turnout.
These elections were key for a number of reasons. Since 2015, when the opposition gained control of the national assembly, there has been a stand-off between the Venezuelan state and the national assembly over a number of issues. Ever since Hugo Chavez’s victory in 1998 presidential elections, electoral contests in Venezuela have been highly polarised between pro-Chavez (Chavistas) - the pro-poor Bolivarian Revolution and the traditional right- wing pro-imperialists parties on the other hand. The pro-imperialist forces have in the recent period fractured on the issue of the illegal and unilateral US sanctions against Venezuela, which has wreaked havoc on the overall conditions of the general population.
The Communist Party of Venezuela and other smaller parties which have supported Chavismo, broke ranks and contested separately from the PSUV coalition on the grounds that PSUV has moved away from the Chavez’s Bolivarian Project and is dabbling with neoliberalism. As a direct result of the sanctions, the conditions of the majority of the poor have declined, with the economy contracting considerably and unable to meet the needs of the majority. Most Venezuelans though look favourably towards Chavez and his program of rapid poverty reduction and expansion of grassroots democracy.
These splits according to those who have paid close attention to the developments in Latin America and Venezuela in particular, suggest this is a reconfiguration of the Venezuelan political landscape against the backdrop of the deep sanctions-induced economic crisis. They also point to lack of a defined, consolidated and active majority around a viable path out of the country’s crisis. The single-commodity economy of Venezuela has suffered considerably with the drop in oil prices and the illegal unilateral sanctions supported by both the US and the EU biting deep and creating the brutal conditions affecting the entire population.
These elections must be seen and understood in the context of regaining of ground of the ‘pink tide’ which has seen Bolivia’s MAS regain power after the US-supported right-wing parliamentary coup that ousted Evo Morales and the Chilean population voting in their majority to rewrite the constitution which was enacted by the Pinochet dictatorship and was still in force.
All of this also takes place in the context of very serious subjective weaknesses in many progressive ruling parties as they seek to tackle widespread allegations of widespread corruption and maladministration.
Since taking control of the national assembly the right-wing opposition in Venezuela also felt they were close to toppling the government. Their combined violent protests, economic warfare, attempted assassinations, calls for a military coup, paramilitary incursions and support for economic sanctions and foreign intervention proved futile.
The right wing further sought international support and was successful to the extent that the US, Australia, the EU and some countries in the region refused to recognise the presidential elections which had elected Maduro. Some moderate forces in the opposition have been in dialogue with the Maduro government and opted to work within the system and formed the core of those who participated in the December 6 parliamentary elections.
Venezuela is hoping for a reassessed relationship with the new Biden administration but is well aware that even when Obama was having a rapprochement with Cuba, he at the same time signed the executive order declaring Venezuela to be a ‘threat to US interests’ thus paving the way for the illegal unilateral sanctions.
The Bolivian election which put the MAS back in power, albeit without Morales at its head, require the Party to pay closer attention to the developments in Bolivia, and in particular to study how the progressive movement is mobilising the native community on a progressive and not narrow tribal basis.
The Party has expressed our strong support of the nomination for the Nobel peace prize of the Cuban Henry Reeve medical brigade for its unparalleled internationalism. “Doctors, not bombs” is a fitting tribute of socialist inspired values espoused by Cuba, in stark contradiction with the US imperialist aggressors. We have equally taken a strong stand on the use by SANDF of interferon to protect the lives of soldiers deployed in the covid19 pandemic.
The African Continent - Defying the Silencing of the Guns
What is most evident in regional politics today is the necessity for sufficient attention to conflicts in Southern Africa. These include stepping up our organisational work on Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, DRC, Cameroon, Sudan and others. We remain deeply worried about Mozambique, and the extent to which it is by and large private mercenary armies who are accorded a prominent role in the conflict, at the marginalisation of SADC and the AU or neighbouring South Africa. The crisis in Zimbabwe, a political, economic and social crisis, must remain of major concern to the SACP and the Alliance, and the rejection of the South African peace broker initiatives must be closely understood. The changed nature of ZANU-PF, the form of class formation and primitive accumulation in Zimbabwe, have led to the abandoning of the political programme of the liberation movement. The SACP approach should base itself on solidarity with the Zimbabwean people.
In the final analysis, liberation movements have to consider the unintended consequence that years of corruption and marginalisation could have potentially created a wider social base for counterrevolution to recruit amongst the unemployed, uneducated masses of our youth in these countries, similar to ISIS religious fundamentalists in Syria and in Libya. The SACP convened ALNEF should continue with a consistent class analysis of Africa. The priority international task is for the alliance to jointly ensure a wider ideological debate relating to the bureaucratic decay of liberation movements in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and other countries as well as the fundamental task of revitalisation of the natural democratic revolution specifically and the African revolution in general.
The coup in Mali ought to receive some attention. The establishment of a transitional government is a positive sign for peace, but the underlying cause of instability is not inseparable from decades of imperialist under- development, stoking of tensions and external interference.
The conflict between Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front has serious security implications not only for Ethiopia but also for the stability in the Horn of Africa sub region. Historically the Tigray people had hegemony in the Ethiopian army and government, a strategic vantage point for amassing wealth, but the change in leadership with the current Prime Minister coming from the Oromo tribe has resulted in some of the previous access no longer benefitting the Tigrates. The conflict is now also leading to a humanitarian crisis in the northern region of Tigray. We note that President Ramaphosa has assigned three special envoys to help bring peace. The SACP must support efforts of peace building and efforts to deal with the tribal divide.
The renewed violent confrontation in Saharawi is a reflection of Morocco’s provocation and arrogance after her readmission to the AU. The joint action by Nehawu and the Party on this matter must be sustained and our profile in the media on this question must be elevated.
The SACP has recently co-hosted a conference on the demand of Somaliland to be an independent state. This demand is rooted in their history under colonialism of being a state separate from Somalia. Somalia, a former Italian colony, is a failed state, while Somaliland’s stability and economic growth has been maintained for more than two decades now. The people of Somaliland expressed their desire in the 2001 referendum to revert to independent status, in line with the African Constitutive Act which speaks about colonial borders as the demarcation to be used for countries. The SACP must continue to support their call for separation and to encourage South Africans to help build and do business with the country.
integrating internationalism into Our Centenary Programme
Even though the Coronavirus does not discriminate, on the whole we can say that the globe-trotting elites were agents of its transmission and eventually the working class and rural poor bore the worst brunt of community infections across the world.
It will be important that going to the New Year, we improve our relations with progressive formations in the continent especially communist or socialist parties; former liberation movements, progressive trade unions and a series of existing organisations which may have some progressive (real or potential) role in their countries. It means that beyond the normal platforms such as ALNEF, International Communist and Workers Parties meetings, World Peace and many others, there must be a focus on bilateral relations through meetings and webinars taking advantage of the available virtual platforms.
The Centenary Programme must have a dedicated stream of international work including to clearly assess the role of the Parties in other countries in the 100 years of existence, and to resuscitate joint work or co-operation between the SACP and other parties.
US Elections and Left Perspective on the Biden Administration
We note that the electoral defeat of Trump opens the door to a new period of struggle in the USA, and the left forces that have thrown their weight behind Biden to get Trump out, face complex and yet good opportunities. On the one hand, they have supported a Democrat whose reactionary posture on Israel is an example of his global imperialist posture. It is not yet clear what Biden’s posture will be in relation to China, recognised recently as the biggest economy in the world. Trump, although beaten, got many votes and the Republicans may still have a hold on the Senate. In addition, he has over his term in office and in his election campaign, created legitimacy for white supremacy, for populist mobilising of people on the basis of racism, narrow nationalism, or xenophobia, for authoritarian security services action and posture. That genie is not so easy to put back in the bottle.
On the other hand, the condition of the American working class, and the mobilisation of the middle class through the election campaign, and in social movements provides for opportunities. The CPUSA (Communist Party of the USA) has concluded “that an even stronger, more expansive and united mobilisation from the grassroots up must demand the new administration overturn the policies and respond to the social and economic needs that propelled millions of people to vote.” This is possible given the alliances with “Black Lives Matter” and “The Poor People’s Campaign”, and the extent of mass mobilisation that has taken place against the Trump regime. The mobilisation of the black and Latino youth has been extensive.
The struggles of 2020 and the election campaign have resulted in an increase in people joining the Communist Party USA – in 2020 1,900 people joined online. The Party has placed their newspaper The People’s World at the centre of their work, and its readership has exploded to 3 million. In addition, the YCL sprang to life in New York and other places.
The Rise of Populism and Fascism in SA and across the world
Populism and fascism are rising on the back of the stress caused by the fourfold crisis across the globe, and here at home. Reflecting on Julius Malema’s Fuhrer- like behaviour in Senekal, we should note that if the ANC led alliance ends up looking like the Weimar Republic with a weak response to the deepening crisis of unemployment, poverty and inequality, in part through persuasion that the biggest challenge facing us is a debt and fiscal crisis, forces like the EFF will likely be a significant beneficiary, we could play directly into the rise of populism and fascism.
Let us remind ourselves that those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it - whether as tragedy or farce. After the Bundestag rejected fiscal consolidation, Chancellor Friedrich Bruining imposed by decree three bouts of fiscal consolidation. Unemployment jumped to almost 30%. Communists built support in reaction to the Bruining administration’s austerity, but in the end big capital threw its weight behind the Nazis as a bulwark against Communists. So, promising a better life, Hitler swept to power immediately. He brought on board as governor of Reichsbank (German Reserve Bank), Dr Horace Hljamar Schacht. Immediately, the Auto Bahns and related public infrastructure were financed using their reserve bank. Germany changed from then on. Japan had to send its bright young men to understudy governor Schacht. Japan copied all the bank law of Germany.
The miracle we saw in Japan, was, in fact, Hitler’s economic scheme. All of East Asia used a similar German blueprint. Using both the reserve bank and public banks like the Sparkassen and Landesbanken, Germany has never been matched. But the story is: Hitler came to power not because of the imposed reparations that caused the hyperinflation, which happened 10 years before. It was because of the three bouts of decreed fiscal consolidations that caused so much suffering among Germans. We may be facing the same soon.
With unmitigated pain and crisis facing not just working class families, but many of the middle strata as well, with austerity responses that will deepen and not relieve the pressure on the people, and with the looting of resources that should be used to change the quality of life of South Africans, we face the risk of angry, hopeless and desperate people who will respond to the seductive voices of populists and fascists.
The lessons of world history and the laws of science indicate that there can never be a vacuum and it is for us as the Communist Party, along with Cosatu and the left forces to be present in the struggles of working-class families and communities, to be at the factory, shop and workplaces of all workers to ensure that the political programme that the working class is mobilised to support is that of the NDR and building socialism, and not that of populism and fascism.
State of the Motive Forces of Our Revolution
Threats to the NDR – austerity and looting and organisational weakness
As indicated, our posture is that the NDR is under threat from within and from two directions – the parasitic networks and the austerity forces, and these are also impacting across Alliance organisations. But there are also organisational weakness that cannot be laid at the door of factions, or alien ideological platforms. It is imperative for the Alliance collectively and individually to analyse our state.
As we have indicated, we face either a massive reconfiguration of our movement or a further descent into fragmentation. We cannot allow this reconfiguration to occur on the terms of the RET forces, and must be able to clearly articulate a principled approach to reconfiguration of the Alliance as mapped out in late 2019.
The state of the ANC
The ANC is faced with a fallout from the recent activities of the Hawks, SIU and NPA that have been met by a strengthened fight-back campaign. The ANC vacillation about implementation of their own Conference Resolutions, namely that comrades who are charged with corruption or serious offences must step aside or be stepped aside, is a reflection of deep divisions. We must also be aware of the opportunist use by the Fight Back Campaign of anti-neoliberal rhetoric that aims to undermine the President and the anti- corruption programme.
Preparations for the NGC must be taken seriously as this will be a critical platform for both the Fight Back Campaign and Neo-liberal Austerity Drive, and space must be created for the renewal of organisation, recommitment to NDR as we know and understand it, and to revolutionary morality. But policy and battle of ideas is not won in the boardroom or conference halls. In this context it is imperative for the Party and Cosatu, the left axis in the Alliance, to engage on both these political matters as well as on trade union issues. Our preparation for the NGC should help the ANC to assess implementation of its own resolutions, and those areas in which government and National Treasury undermine ANC policy. The working class role in relation to the ANC policy perspectives must be strongly asserted. We cannot allow the working class to ignore its role within the ANC.
Mass mobilisation to defend the working class and the NDR and active and concrete implementation of the Red October HH+W campaign is very important. How the left axis positions itself at this time is critical. The space of going to the ground cannot be left to the ‘RET’ fight-back forces. The neo- liberal agenda, supported and driven by the Minister of Finance, does not see the ground as relevant in its strategy, but sees mainstream bourgeois media as its principal platform. It will be for the left axis of the Alliance and the broad left front to ensure that the NGC discourse and debate is taken to the ground.
Left influence on the ANC and on government is waning and this is deeply seen in the treatment of the people and our organisations on the ground. The inconsistent postures within the Alliance makes our revolution vulnerable, and the alliance ineffective.
This is allowing groupings such as the Cadres Assembly grouping to do position themselves outside and parallel to the constitutional structures of the ANC, something we must be cautious of. These same people, the Cadre Assembly grouping, defended the 1996 Class Project, then when they were rejected by the Class Project became the New Tendency and benefitted from Guptas. It is significant that this grouping has tentacles in the NEC, and key drivers of it have also been very clearly and public aligned to the “Hands Off the SG” campaign. The xenophobic and threatening militaristic language of the MKMVA continues to require careful analysis. Our Constitution provides for very strong controls over the Defence Force, but the attacks on the current leadership of the Defence Force, the attacks in relation to their use of Cuban Interferon, and the mobilising of ex- security officers in this type of factional manner should be carefully monitored.
Party work to strengthen the ANC must be coordinated by the Party Building Commission. We are possibly facing the emergence of a multiplicity of factions in the ANC. It is clear that the centre is not holding. These factions are both interest groups and have ideological differences.
State of trade union organisation of the working class
The major achievement of the united action across federations on 8 October must be welcomed, but we are concerned that this has not resulted in ongoing joint action, with Saftu indicating that they will return to the streets, but without ensuring that the unity of organised workers is sustained. This process is a critical component of enabling the class to act as a class instead of as organisational groupings within a class. The balance within the trade union movement in relation to levels of unionisation in the public service, public sector (SOEs) and the private sector must receive attention.
Within the public service unions, the issue of union and member conduct towards their obligations as servants of the people needs to be addressed. The trashing of public health facilities in the midst of the absolutely legitimate struggle for fulltime employment for community health workers cannot be condoned. The closing of a frontline office, with queues of citizens outside, while the union holds a meeting cannot be correct. Workers leaving work before closing time, and thereby denying working class people who have spent money they do not have and time that is valuable to travel to the office for whatever public service they need is unacceptable and must be taken up by our red unions committed to the class.
The scope that capital has had in the private sector to ignore compliance with covid19 regulations, to retrench and not pay workers their UIF TERS money, is a reflection of the weakness of unions in the private sector.
The impact of union investment companies on revolutionary trade unionism must be analysed by the Party. It is of note that the Registrar of unions in Department of Labour has identified serious concerns with the functioning of the investment arms of some unions, and that the BBBEE Council has raised the issue of investment arms of the unions possibly being vehicles for fronting.
The recent bilateral with Cosatu has re-energised Party-Cosatu relations, with a commitment to re-activate the Political-ideological Commission, to set up a team to develop a joint programme and prioritising economic reconstruction and recovery, and to push for an Alliance Summit to be held in January 2021. The commitment of the CEC to make 2021 the Year of the Local provides a platform for significant rebuilding of the affiliates and of Cosatu, strengthened and buttressed by our own district focus on both the workplace and communities.
State of the youth formations and extent of organisation of the youth of SA
All of the societal challenges emanating from the fourfold crisis of capitalism have particular impact on the youth, demographically predominant in South Africa, now in the immediate sense and obviously for their future. The left axis in the youth movement has been seriously undermined by the access to position, power and money and a crass- materialist greed that undermines any solidarity consciousness amongst the youth.
As we consider how to deepen our work amongst the youth, and particularly the intellectual and working class youth, we must review and act on our resolutions to start Party branches, with academics, administrators, workers and students, in institutions of higher learning.
We must consolidate our ideological work with the student organisations, both Cosas and Sasco. But we must also deepen our relationship with the Cosatu Young Workers Forum, the young workers structures of trade union affiliates, and with the ANC Women’s League Younga-Younga, who have shone in relation to action on the ground but can be strengthened and better guided ideologically.
State of women as a motive force for the NDR
The women’s movement must become a priority for strengthening in 2021, with the PWMSA (Progressive Women’s Movement of South Africa) conference due to be held during the course of the year. Party Districts must be active in re-energising the regional structures of the PWMSA before the conference and ensuring that a programme of action is developed in each region that focuses on the immediate issues that impact on working class women.
The PWMSA must not just be a national level lobby group, intervening in policy and equity processes only, but must be steered on the basis of a bottom-up programme of action with very concrete demands.
The Party has made nominations to the Board of the GBV Council. We must be ready to ensure that the Council is effective, and that the struggle for its funding is not a women-only fight as it is a critical part of the struggle against neo-liberal undermining of progressive policy and strategy.
We must through the launching and driving of our White Ribbon Campaign with the Joe Slovo Foundation and Cosatu sustain the momentum on the struggle against GBV. Let 2021 see active training of Party cadres on how to run primary GBV prevention programmes in our communities, places of learning and workplaces.
The factional and equity at all costs approach of the Women’s League has not built and strengthened the working- class women’s contribution as part of the motive forces of the NDR, and a significant step change is required.
The linkages between the Red October Campaign and the burden of social reproduction that women disproportionately bear must see a District based and Communist driven broad front of organised women being brought together to deepen the concrete interventions.
Self-Reflection on SACP – building a cadre-based Party with its Districts rooted in the community and local workplaces
The influence of the Party may be diminishing at a number of levels and we must reflect on how close we are as Party leadership to our own membership. We have seen since both the 14th Congress and SNC that we need to attend to this. Our organising work must be based on taking programmes down to the District level to ensure a cadre-based Party is built and its Districts are rooted in the community and local workplaces
We have taken steps to enhance accountability within the Party in this time of heightened focus on corruption. We are also finding distorted allegations and innuendos emerging in factionalist ways. We must hold ourselves to the highest moral and ethical standards. The Party has engaged our deployees to public office and requested them to sign a pledge to stop corruption and ensure good governance. This will be complemented by the establishment of the Revolutionary Morality Committee in early 2021.
How do the people and the working class see the ANC?
Brief reflection on the recent by- elections across the country indicates that the ANC has overall retained its seats, but a deeper analysis of the voter turn-out and the numbers of votes cast for the ANC is required before we feel complacent. We do not yet understand how the number of votes may have changed and how this may be used to forecast the 2021 LGE outcomes.
Our approach to the 2021 Local Government Elections
Our approach to the 2021 Local Government Elections, in line with our Congress resolution, is closely linked to the reconfiguration of the Alliance. Current disregard for the reconfiguration of the Alliance is of real concern to the Party and has been seen in the disregard of the alliance input in the Economic Reconstruction Plan of the ANC; the lack of follow through from the Alliance Provincial Secretaries Forum in June, and the ANC unilaterally and in defiance of the Alliance-approved document on Reconfiguration of the Alliance, issuing Guidelines for Selection of Local Government Candidates to the provinces.
The “Guidelines on Selection” document was presented to the lastAlliance Secretariat, a month or more after it was sent to the ANC provincial structures. We have identified some significant improvements, but also major concerns. Firstly, our standpoint is that the ANC approach to electoral processes must fully embrace the reconfiguration of the Alliance and reducing Alliance partners to the equivalent of the Leagues is not in keeping with our agreed approach to Reconfiguration of the Alliance. The step of removing the role of ANC Provincial Secretaries is an important step towards prevention of manipulation of list processes; and the establishment of the Internal Electoral Committee, decided on in the 54th Conference, is to be supported. However, the inclusion of the Alliance in these processes and structures must be reviewed and enhanced to be consistent with the “Alliance Reconfiguration” document.
Cosatu, as seen in their CEC statement, has expressed deep concern on the lack of progress in the reconfiguration of the Alliance, and with the implementation of Alliance resolutions, particularly those impacting on the workers. The CEC reaffirmed their Congress resolution to support the ANC in the 2019 elections, and that if there is no reconfiguration of the Alliance, they will support the SACP going forward.
A critical question for us and for Cosatu to consider in relation to this is whether the class is ready to take the step they are proposing. It must be recognised that contesting elections, even if not to become the governing party but to win a platform for a Communist/Left voice in the legislature, does not come dished up on a silver platter. The disarray of the working class and its organisations, the capacity of the Party to lead and to have resources, the strength and coherence of the emerging broad front must all be weighed up in this discussion. Our strategic and programmatic approach must be our point of departure - that of building working class influence and hegemony on the ground!
TOWARDS OUR 2021 CENTENARY PROGRAMME OF ACTION
The 2021 programme of action is the centenary programme. There will be no distance between the Centenary programme, the crowd funding and financial sustainability campaign, the political education programme, trade union work, the HHH+W campaign, the campaign to stop corruption and to prevent imposition of austerity and neo- liberal policies, or even in our election work. In all of our work in 2021 the links between our history, key contemporary Party organisational issues, and key political tasks must be integrated.
2021 must focus on building our own organisational capacity.
The “South African Road to Socialism” says correctly that we seek to build working class hegemony in all sites of power. We are not able to do this nor to build effective SACP presence in the areas where the working class is organised, unless we have developed ourselves as a cadre-based and sustainably resourced Party.
If we reflect briefly on where the working class is organised – in a Marxist understanding, the most important place is the workplace, but that workplace is no longer the English factory of Marx – it is factories and mines, it is an extensive retail sector, it is working from home, it is the informal economy, it is the public service and the public sector. We must consider the level of organisation and trade unions in all of these workplaces. We cannot build working class hegemony if we do not have a Party presence in workplaces.
But the working class is also organised into various areas of social reproduction - stokvels, burial societies, cooperatives, SGBs, CPFs - where is the organised Party presence here? How do we build hegemony where we are not leading in the sites where working class is organised? There are significant sections of working class and middle class in the churches and religious institutions looking for hope and direction - where is progressive organisation in these spheres?
Our Red October campaign is critical for strengthening presence of the Party in all sites of power and must be sustained throughout 2021. Our goal in 2021 is to seriously turn around our strength in all these areas where the working class is located.
Ongoing policy formulation and updating of SARS
We have said that the Red October Campaign must have two legs – the first is concrete campaigns and interventions on the ground, and the second is the deepening of Party policy perspectives on food security, on human settlements, on health and access to affordable and clean water. The SACP’s Socio- economic Transformation Commission with the support of the Gender Coordinating Commission, must be seized with how to deepen the policy work in this regard.
It is our intention to update SARS in the form of Bua Komanisi Working papers. The work of completing our Bua Komanisi Working Papers and the development of policy positions on the HHH+W and the policy review by each Commission must build on the resolutions of the Special National Congress and lead us towards our discussion documents for the 15th Congress in 2022.
The 15th Congress will face the enormous task of reflecting on the strategic options in the face of the outcome of the contestation of the ANC and the Alliance by the Parasitic Fight Back Campaign and Neo-liberal Austerity Forces; the outcome of the 2021 local Government Elections, and the changing post-covid19 global and domestic environment.
The Central Committee will in the 18 months between now and the 15th Congress need to evaluate the relevance of SARS and the concrete revolutionary strategy that flows from it in the conjuncture of this time. While the understanding that the NDR remains the most direct route to socialism remains unchallenged, the organisational format of the leadership and execution of the NDR is in flux.
Our 2021 Centenary Programme of Action must pay particular attention to revolutionary trade union organisation.
We must put our Trade Union and Mass Formations Commission on a new footing and enable it to be more active and proactive. The current composition of the Commission consists largely of former unionists, who are currently massively loaded with other responsibilities. We need to develop a team of comrades specifically deployed to work in that Commission, allocated to work with a particular union, who engage directly with trade unions on the ground. We must be able to reverse the trend which seems to be towards losing organised labour as a critical part of the left axis. We need to engage and fully understand who is in the trade unions of today - who are the shop stewards of today?
They are mainly young people who don’t come from the same struggle background and this is beginning to have impact on the trade union movement, particularly with political education declining. We are also concerned with seeing the EFF opportunistically joining workers in their struggles, as seen at the SABC recently. The visibility of the Party banner in all industrial action must be improved. Some of senior comrades with union backgrounds need to give more time. We need a focused Jack Simons Party School political education stream on trade union issues and empowering trade union cadres.
Going down to the ground
Of concern is that our very rich and astute analysis of the different tendencies, the balance of forces and the policy alternatives is not translating into influence on the ground - in the ANC, in trade unions, in the youth and women’s movements, in the sectoral organisations. We need to address how to take the policy posture and our analysis down to the working class, and to mobilise also the middle strata in alliance with the working class. This requires us to shift gear in relation to our communication strategy as the SACP, and to ensure that our priority in 2021 is translating our complex and correct analysis into accessible analysis and concrete campaigns and demands of the working class and its allies.
How can we build working class hegemony when we do not have Party influence in key sites where the working class is organised? So, organisational work and mass-directed communication assumes an even more important profile in the 2021 Centenary Programme of Action with a strong focus on organisational work and sectoral work. A battle of ideas that engages opinion and policy makers and does not mobilise the working class behind the position of the Party and the left axis, cannot be won. Our powerbase on the ground is critical to balance the resources of capital and those that hold the levers of the state and are not promoting working class interests in the manner that they use these levers of state.
Left popular fronts at all levels
The building a left popular front is also critical to establishing of working- class hegemony. The Centenary 2021 programme of action must continue to build on the partnerships we have built in the stop corruption campaign, in the policy work that we have embarked on, in the engagement on Party history that is envisaged with UJ and with a collective of academics wanting to run a series of webinars on Party history, in the political education programmes that reach outside of Party members, and in the Red October campaign.
All of the above, and our 2021 Centenary theme to be active in the present to build the socialist future requires the capacity in the Party which honestly at the moment, we don’t have. There is a real risk that we can become irrelevant if we do not build organisational capacity, and this requires attention to the immediate and long- term financial sustainability of the Party. The launch of the SACP crowd funding initiative this December, the launch of the Endowment Fund in January, the positive response from deployees to support the Party in the current crisis, the work of our investment arm must all shape a new approach to funding of the Communist Party appropriate to the working-class hegemony that we seek to build.
CONCLUSION
The theme for our Centenary Year is so relevant to the conjuncture we are in: Learning from the Past, Active in the Present, Building the Future, Building Socialism Now. In order for it to contribute to the rescue of the NDR, which we reassert remains the most direct route to socialism, this theme must be anchored in cadre-based Party work in Districts rooted in our communities, in our workplaces, and in strengthening working class organisation in all its forms at that level.
Let’s make 2021 the Year of Mass Activism by the workers and the poor, under the overarching slogan of “Put people before Profits” leading to reconfigured organisational relationships and a broader front of left/ progressive forces, and the capacity to assert hegemony in the face of both austerity and corruption, and the undermining of working class interests. The Red October Campaign dimensions of hunger, health, human settlements and water, the campaign against interpersonal violence and Gender-Based Violence in particular, the campaign for a universal basic income grant, the campaign against retrenchments, the campaign for development of the informal social and solidarity economy must all be located in mass activism and innovative mass action in our Districts and in Cosatu locals.
Put People before Profits – Make 2021 A Year of Mass Activism!
Source: African Communist 3rd and 4th Quarter 2020
