Calls for intensification of political education made by many including the ANC Secretary General Cde. Gwede Mantashe in his contribution to the ANC today of 16 October sheds some light into the nature and direction that the movement is supposed to be going.
Comrade Gwede’s contribution is a wake-up call and it will assist us towards the resolution of the problem that Cde. Gugile Nkwinti pointed out about 9 years ago when he made an observation that comrades who are properly trained in the movements’ policies and programme are a diminishing proportion of the people that currently populate it. This leads to a situation where it is easy to buy them.
The Communist Manifesto’s assertion that the history of all hitherto existing society is that of class struggle is true reflection of society, but equally so the theory of the National Democratic Revolution which talks about the class alliance between the working class with some sections of the middle and upper class, who share the same objectives with those of the working class, is also relevant.
In the South African context, this is reflected in the Revolutionary Alliance of three different but interrelated and interdependent organisations. This Alliance is led by the ANC, which is a mass liberation movement, with working class organisations such as SACP and COSATU as allies.
The SACP is a working class organisation that strives for Socialism and COSATU is a revolutionary trade union movement which transcends petty economic analysis of work place struggles as it gives them political content and locates them within the working class struggle for socialism.
The ANC on the other hand is a multi-class organisation which is biased towards the working class. Because it is a multi-class this means its ideological position is shaped and revived by different sections of society and in most cases these are classes which are supposed to be in antagonistic terms in society.
The current NEC of the ANC is indicative of this and the current differences also bring this to mind. The fact that the ANC is multi-class, does not mean that the ANC is ideological neutral and neither does it mean it performs some form of a ‘class balancing act’.
Honest comrades have been forever saying that the ANC has an ideology which is premised on the principles of the Freedom Charter and clearly articulated in the programme of the National Democratic Revolution.
Comrade Gwede is right the current ANC Strategy and Tactics document recognises the leading role of the “African majority working class” in the National Democratic Revolution. This basically means that the middle class and the emergent black elites joined the ANC because they agreed with this agenda of the working class.
Throughout the period in which this revolutionary alliance has been in public office, there has been a systematic campaign to project the ANC as a neoliberal capitalist organisation in alliance with working class organisations such as COSATU and SACP. This has been mostly done by those from the emergent capitalist class, but also by some within Marxists circles (“The Sectarian Left”).
This has been the cause for many differences in the movement and this can be illustrated by the emergence of the ‘1996 class project’ which has, in some way, rolled back, but replaced now by what the SACP Special Congress Discussion Document calls the “new tendency”.
The call for intensification of political education will indeed help us navigate through these and many other challenges because it will help us understand that it is the emergent or aspiring capitalist who ideological joined the working class in the ANC and the movement at large and not the reverse.
Political education will teach us that communist are people who are with and for the workers and the poor hence they will always contests any privatisation, flawed tender process and javelin throwing even if these benefits people within the ranks of the movement.
This is the reason why communist will always be in conflict with sections of the emergent capitalist class. Political education will therefore show us as to where these whole anti-communist sentiments come from and why they will always be in the movement and how they can be dealt with.
Political education will lead to political and organisational independence as it will teach us as to how to deal with influence of money in our movement. It is political education that will help us formulate a pragmatic approach to the challenges we are facing and not just interpret them as a attack against Gwede Mantashe, Blade Nzimande or Phumulo Masualle and others.
Political Education will help us navigate thought these problems by teaching us that “Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.”
Revolutionary Regards
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Threats on Our South African Road to Socialism
I writing this after the statements attributed to Billy Masetlha in the Mail and Guardian and I think it is improper to just think that Billy Masetlha’s statements we a distortion or fabrication by the newspaper. When we said we want the President of the ANC to serve another term, we said that it is, amongst other things, because some people are already engaged in these debates and are beginning to position themselves and what we see is that they do not have an agenda to advance the cause of the people but want to serve their narrow BEE interest.
A frank analysis of this tendency is provided by the SACP Special Congress Discussion Document titled, “Building Working Class Hegemony on a Terrain of the National Democratic Struggle.”
In analysing the balances of forces in the battle of ideas the document indicates that,“Over the past several years, in the battle of ideas within our movement a broad front of tendencies and ideological orientations got to be mobilised against the “1996 class project”. The SACP played a leading role in this process. However, it would be an error for the SACP to imagine that within this broad front everyone agreed with the positions of the Party, or necessarily disagreed with the core underlying ideology of “the 1996 class project” (as opposed to having personal grudges, for instance, against it).”
This paragraph does not need to be unpacked and elsewhere in the document it is analysed as to why these people got to be mobilised against the 1996 class project, even thought they did not disagree with the core underlying ideology of the project. It states that this was because they, like SACP and COSATU, dismissed the manner in which the 1996 class project abused the state in order to advance its factionalist ends.
In analysing these concerns the document states that, “In other cases the concern appears to have been more opportunistic – i.e. a grievance at being excluded from the abusing inner circle – rather than a principled rejection of the idea that personal wealth, or access to bureaucratic power should be used to advance personal accumulation interests.”
We must always take these issues into cognisance and we must be always ready to fight against what comrade Mao calls ‘non-antagonistic’ forces within our movement. Cronin puts it bluntly that “The fact that they are “non-antagonistic” does not mean that they are not real political contradictions ultimately located in objective realities.”
A frank analysis of this tendency is provided by the SACP Special Congress Discussion Document titled, “Building Working Class Hegemony on a Terrain of the National Democratic Struggle.”
In analysing the balances of forces in the battle of ideas the document indicates that,“Over the past several years, in the battle of ideas within our movement a broad front of tendencies and ideological orientations got to be mobilised against the “1996 class project”. The SACP played a leading role in this process. However, it would be an error for the SACP to imagine that within this broad front everyone agreed with the positions of the Party, or necessarily disagreed with the core underlying ideology of “the 1996 class project” (as opposed to having personal grudges, for instance, against it).”
This paragraph does not need to be unpacked and elsewhere in the document it is analysed as to why these people got to be mobilised against the 1996 class project, even thought they did not disagree with the core underlying ideology of the project. It states that this was because they, like SACP and COSATU, dismissed the manner in which the 1996 class project abused the state in order to advance its factionalist ends.
In analysing these concerns the document states that, “In other cases the concern appears to have been more opportunistic – i.e. a grievance at being excluded from the abusing inner circle – rather than a principled rejection of the idea that personal wealth, or access to bureaucratic power should be used to advance personal accumulation interests.”
We must always take these issues into cognisance and we must be always ready to fight against what comrade Mao calls ‘non-antagonistic’ forces within our movement. Cronin puts it bluntly that “The fact that they are “non-antagonistic” does not mean that they are not real political contradictions ultimately located in objective realities.”
Monday, October 5, 2009
A Ground for Building Working Class Hegemony
Comrades this is an attempt to start the debate around the SACP Special National conference Discussion document titled “Building Working Class Hegemony on the Terrain of a National Democratic Struggle (2009).” This is an insightful document.
Another thing is that there are discussions about the YCL provincial conference, some other comrades have already started discussing the personalities that should lead, but what we must know is that at the end of the day and similar to the outcomes of the ANC recent ANC conferences, the working class must lead.
The silence of Communist in the Eastern Cape in the SACP pre-conference debate raise diverse interpretations and here we don’t attempt to deal with them but what is important is an account on the silence, if there is any.
The watershed Eastern Cape ANC provincial conference could have never came at a better time than when the South African Communist Party is preparing for its Special National Congress in Limpopo this December.
It is an undisputable fact that the provincial conference refocused our energies, and we are still having conference hangover, but here we want to connect where our energies are and how this place connects with the whole discussion on “Building Working Class Hegemony on the Terrain of a National Democratic Struggle.”
The SACP provincial secretary’s pre-conference article, “Enrichment of few must be stopped at ANC conference ...” goes a long way in explaining the link between the EC conference and the SACP pre-conference debates.
The ANC is a class contested national liberation movement and it can be said that in the EC conference the working class was faced with a tough contests by sections of the new black capitalist class.
In that conference the foreign capitalistic tendency that seeks to redefine the National Democratic Revolution and reposition the ANC as a capitalist organization, which is in alliance with the working class was defeated. It was boldly stated that the situation was the reverse.
This tendency was dismissed and defeated because it tries to paint a picture that the ANC is a capitalist organization and the working class has joined it because they agree with the agenda of capitalist.
Dismissing and defeating this tendency can indeed be linked to “Building working class hegemony on the Terrain of a National Democratic Struggle.” We must always know that we will always encounter these types of tendencies on our ‘South African Road to Socialism.’
Another thing is that there are discussions about the YCL provincial conference, some other comrades have already started discussing the personalities that should lead, but what we must know is that at the end of the day and similar to the outcomes of the ANC recent ANC conferences, the working class must lead.
The silence of Communist in the Eastern Cape in the SACP pre-conference debate raise diverse interpretations and here we don’t attempt to deal with them but what is important is an account on the silence, if there is any.
The watershed Eastern Cape ANC provincial conference could have never came at a better time than when the South African Communist Party is preparing for its Special National Congress in Limpopo this December.
It is an undisputable fact that the provincial conference refocused our energies, and we are still having conference hangover, but here we want to connect where our energies are and how this place connects with the whole discussion on “Building Working Class Hegemony on the Terrain of a National Democratic Struggle.”
The SACP provincial secretary’s pre-conference article, “Enrichment of few must be stopped at ANC conference ...” goes a long way in explaining the link between the EC conference and the SACP pre-conference debates.
The ANC is a class contested national liberation movement and it can be said that in the EC conference the working class was faced with a tough contests by sections of the new black capitalist class.
In that conference the foreign capitalistic tendency that seeks to redefine the National Democratic Revolution and reposition the ANC as a capitalist organization, which is in alliance with the working class was defeated. It was boldly stated that the situation was the reverse.
This tendency was dismissed and defeated because it tries to paint a picture that the ANC is a capitalist organization and the working class has joined it because they agree with the agenda of capitalist.
Dismissing and defeating this tendency can indeed be linked to “Building working class hegemony on the Terrain of a National Democratic Struggle.” We must always know that we will always encounter these types of tendencies on our ‘South African Road to Socialism.’
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