Communist Participation in Liberal Parliaments: Reconciling the David and the Dominic Documents

(Note: You can access the documents by both David Masondo and Dominic Tweedie by clicking in the title of this post).

I don’t see any fundamental difference between what comrade David and Dominic are saying on their documents. As a person that has been following the debates in the YCL Discussion Forum, which I think got out of hand and strayed away from the conceptions of both documents, I believe it is proper for me to reconcile the arguments posed in both documents.

In his document comrade Dominic argues that, “The number of seats held by the communists is not critical. The presence of communists in parliament is tactical. In some circumstances there might even be a boycott of elections or of parliament. But as a rule the communists have good reasons for wanting to be in parliament.” This point has no difference with the arguments of comrade David as he does not argue for a mere increase in the number of communist in parliament, but stress the need for them to be accountable to the SACP, as the title of the document explains.

Comrade Dominic goes on to correctly argue that parliament, “is a relatively minor site of struggle and views on parliamentary tactics should therefore never be allowed to divide or split the revolutionary forces.” In relation to the first argument of Comrade Dominic comrade David is scared of the fact that in the current arrangement Communist are not represented in Parliament, as those that are there do not report to the party of Communists. Bear in mind that comrade David is not saying we should have communist in parliament accounting to the SACP and it ends there, he treats communist participation in parliament tactically.

Comrade David’s document also says nothing about a break of the SACP with the ANC, unless comrade David said this in an informal discussion with Dominic, until this come to the fore, those remarks (if there are any) remain unknown.

The main point that clearly connects the document is when comrade Dominic argues that, “Parliament is part of the enemy camp and party members go there as agitators to carry out party decisions under the command and control of the party leadership outside parliament..” Comrade David wants party cadres in parliament to be accountable to the “party leadership outside parliament”, and the title of his document says a lot about this (Independence of the SACP in the post-2009).

David’s document can be summed up by his quote when he says, “SACP cadres are in the legislatures as ANC members and under the whip of the ANC, and the modes of accountability as well as the tasks of communists in the legislatures in relation to the independent role of the Party in the legislatures are not very clear.”

I am more than convinced that there is no point of fundamental difference in both documents, but these things are expressed differently in both documents. Both cadres should be commended for drafting these documents and the documents should not be viewed as in opposition to each other.

Lastly I admire comrade David for not reducing himself, to the fruitful but rather unhealthy email debate in the forum, where this was reduced into this person knows this Marxist document and can quote it very well and that one has made a spelling mistake and that one has mistakenly said the Congress of the People organised the Defiance Campaign rather than the Congress Alliance.

In as much as comrade Dominic follows the Critical Pedagogy, he does not live it, because he tends to scare most of us with classical Marxists documents and big references, every time when he is engaged. This is not to say referencing is wrong, but we should remember that this is a Young Communist League Discussion Forum, hence young communists, like me, decide to abstain in discussions where Dominic is involved.

Aluta Continua