DECLARATION OF THE 10TH SACP CONGRESS

Johannesburg, July 5 1998

Preamble

This 10th Congress of the South African Communist Party has taken place at a
critical and complex moment in the ongoing South African national democratic
revolution. This Congress has met after four years of ANC-led governance, and it
has provided us with an opportunity to take stock of the major achievements, of
the real objective constraints and of the subjective shortcomings of the past
four years.

The Congress has taken place, also, one year before the next general
elections in our country. It is a Congress that has convened in the midst of
grave volatility in our domestic and in international financial markets,
underlining once more the crisis-ridden character of capitalism. The present
crisis is represented as an "Asian" crisis, in fact it is a global
capitalist crisis.

Above all, this Congress has convened at an important strategic moment in the
national democratic revolution of our country. The medium and longer-term
strategic outcome of the April 1994 democratic breakthrough is class-contested.
The debates this past week, and the media coverage of our Congress, underline
this fundamental strategic reality.

On the one hand, powerful forces in our country, the beneficiaries of
apartheid wealth and privilege, allied with powerful external forces, are bent
on blocking and subverting the ongoing radical transformation of our society. On
the other hand, there is the real possibility and necessity of pressing
fearlessly ahead with national democratic transformation.

The precondition for the anti-democratic strategy to succeed is an
ANC/SACP/COSATU alliance that is fragmented, dissipated and divided. This is why
there are forces in our society who work so hard to achieve this outcome, and
why they so dishonestly goad the SACP into playing brinkmanship with our
alliance. Any SACP position that falls short of taking our alliance to the brink
is scoffed at as being timid. This 10th Congress has shown that the SACP has no
intention of playing recklessly into that agenda.

By contrast, the precondition for ongoing national democratic transformation
is a powerful, robust Tripartite Alliance, based on a common strategic
programme, and rooted in a common working class constituency - the overwhelming
majority of our people who continue to be the victims of the apartheid legacy.

It is within this context that the 10th Congress of the SACP has resolved:

1. To continue to build and strengthen the SACP as an autonomous formation
within the context of the ANC-led alliance

The building and strengthening of the SACP involves several core features:

• Effective cadre building, around our unified programmatic Marxist-Leninist
  positions developed at this Congress. This involves extensive internal
  political education within our Party, jointly with our COSATU ally, and with
  the ANC and other popular formations;
• Implementing our programme of action, as resolved at Congress. This
  programme of action places special attention on transformational struggles
  at the grass-roots level, where we work, study and live. It focuses upon the
  need to build Peoples Power, and to do so in the context of mass
  mobilisation that works hand in hand with progressive governance structures.
• As a first step in the implementation of this programme of action, this
  Congress has elected a Central Committee that embodies a powerful balance of
  senior government, trade union, women and other Communist leaders. This 10th
  Congress expresses, in particular, its pride in having taken an important
  first step in ensuring that all of our Party structures are gender
  representative.

2. Building the Alliance

This 10th Congress reaffirms its deep commitment to the ANC/SACP/COSATU
tripartite alliance. This commitment, rooted in seven decades of alliance
experience, is not simply a matter of history. It is, above all, a strategic
imperative.

The SACP's commitment to the alliance is, in no way, a renunciation of our
own autonomous, communist organisation, policies and programmes. On the
contrary, a strong communist SACP is a precondition for a strong ANC and COSATU,
and vice versa.

An alliance, as decades of experience have taught us, is not built primarily
through declarations and meetings (and debates) between leaderships. An alliance
has to be built on the ground in common, unifying programmes of action. For this
reason, the programme of action we have developed at this 10th Congress of the
SACP, is a programme that we intend to discuss and develop with our alliance
partners, and other MDM formations. Above all, it is a programme of action that
we intend to implement jointly, on the ground.

This 10th Congress mandates the newly elected leadership of the SACP to
engage with the leadership of the ANC in the coming weeks, to inform our
comrades in the ANC of the resolutions of this Congress, and to discuss
constructively the SACP's concerns about certain allegations made.

This 10th Congress further mandates the SACP leadership to carry forward our
discussions, debates and resolutions into the forthcoming Tripartite Alliance
Summit.

3. 1999 Elections

This 10th Congress re-affirms the SACP position that we shall work tirelessly
as Communists to ensure an overwhelming ANC electoral victory. This resolve is
based on many strategic considerations. It is also based on our conviction that,
in the first four years of governance, the ANC-led government has spearheaded
major socio-economic transformation.

As Communists we also note that all of the other electoral formations in our
country are either opportunistic formations with few policies and many hopes
that somehow our Alliance will split, or Parties washed up from the apartheid
past, representing narrow ethnic or elite constituencies.

Our commitment to fighting the elections is not just a general position
taking. In the coming months the SACP will instruct all of its activists and
structures to actively take up the ID book and voter registration campaigns.

In the coming months, the SACP will also engage actively with its alliance
partners to ensure that the ANC electoral platform on which the 1999 elections
are contested is progressive, and remains anchored within our RDP vision.

4. Economic transformation

This 10th Congress has discussed in detail numerous specific economic policy
issues. In particular, this Congress:

• Reaffirms its belief that the overall thrust of GEAR is not the
  appropriate macro-economic framework for our society, and this overall
  thrust must be rejected. We have resolved, in the light of this, to engage
  with our alliance partners, other components of the MDM, and government, to
  ensure that we develop an appropriate macro-economic framework.
• Reaffirms that macro-economic policy on its own, is insufficient, and that
  we need, in particular, an active, progressive and integrated industrial
  policy, an overarching and integrated job creation strategy, and social
  security nets. Any macro-economic policy must be aligned with these and
  other transformation policies. The SACP will continue to pursue all of these
  matters in the context of our forthcoming Alliance Summit, and other
  processes.
• Calls for the restructuring of the Public Sector Pension Fund, and for a
  National Retirement Fund.
• Calls for the Eskom Amendment Bill to be held back from the present
  legislative process, and for the continuation of intra-alliance discussions
  on the future of Eskom.
• On monetary policy, this Congress, calls for the reduction of the current
  interest rates, and for the priority of monetary policy to be shifted from
  reducing inflation to creating employment. We welcome the announcement of a
  successor, for next year, to the present Reserve Bank governor. The SACP
  expresses its confidence that this announcement is in the context of a
  commitment to ensure the Reserve Bank is transformed, and that its policies
  are aligned more effectively with our RDP transformation agenda.
• On fiscal policy, this Congress calls for social deficit targets to be
  prioritised over budget deficit targets, and for the present tax structures,
  which is regressive in many respects, to be changed.

5. Defending the Revolution

The NDR needs to be advanced and deepened, but it also needs to be defended.
There are counter-revolutionary forces in our country bent on undermining our
new constitutional order. These forces must be dealt with decisively.

The defence of our revolution requires increasing the capacity and coherence
of the state, ensuring that it is continually transformed. But this defence of
the revolution also requires an active, vigilant and mobilised mass base. The
mobilisational programme of the SACP and of our alliance is directed
simultaneously and transformation and defence.

6. Build Peoples Power, Build Socialism Now!

This 10th Congress emerges unified behind our Congress slogan - Build Peoples
Power, Build Socialism Now!

In the coming weeks, months and years, we dedicate ourselves to implementing
the programmatic mandate given to us by this Congress. In all that we do, we are
guided by the understanding that, if we are to succeed in our objectives, we
have, as a Party, to work to ensure that the working class of our country more
and more emerges as a force in itself, a class force capable of assuming
hegemonic leadership of the ongoing transformation struggle.