CHAPTER 4

THE SACP AND THE PRESENT POLITICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL TERRAIN

Since the 1994 democratic breakthrough, our ANC-led national liberation movement has steadily consolidated political power, stabilised and contained the counter-revolutionary threat, and embarked upon a major socio-economic transformation process.

The decade of the 1990s and the first years of the new millennium have proved, however, to be challenging at a political and ideological level. Our 1994 democratic breakthrough coincided with a period in which the dominant progressive political and ideological projects of the 20th century (the communist, the social democratic, and the radical Third World national liberation movement legacies) were all in considerable disarray. The South African liberation movement had to assume responsibility for governing in a domestic and international situation that was not always favourable to advancing, deepening and defending a national democratic revolution.

The ANC-led movement, over the past several years, has also had to cope with the challenge of a considerable class and social mobility within our own leading cadre. This mobility is, of course, a progressive advance and a direct consequence of our democratic victory, but it has also brought its own inevitable challenges and complexities.

Overall, the ANC-led alliance has proved to be more durable than our opponents had hoped, notwithstanding some serious intra-alliance differences. Over the course of two national and provincial elections, and two local government elections we have consolidated a massive majority. We have done reasonably well in combining governance with mass-based organisation and campaigning, although there are many acknowledged weaknesses on this front. Fundamentally, we have continued to provide overall political and ideological leadership to the massive transformation process under-way in our country.

However, there are many challenges, difficulties and complexities that we face on the present political and ideological terrain.

NEO-LIBERALISM – THE PRINCIPAL STRATEGIC OPPOSITON

Over the past eight years the SACP has consistently argued that the neo-liberal project constitutes the principal strategic, political and ideological threat to advancing, deepening and defending our national democratic revolution.

This neo-liberal project is primarily organised within our present constitutional dispensation, in opposition political parties, in NGOs, in business formations, and in the media. Its primary objective is not to overthrow, or mount a frontal counter-revolution against the new non-racial dispensation – rather it seeks to hegemonise our new democracy, giving it a conservative liberal character. Nor is this project defined primarily by overt racism – although it mobilises on the basis of a host of racial fears and prejudices, and the consequences of its success will be to entrench and deepen race, class and gendered inequality.

The neo-liberal project shares and contests the same constitutional, multi-party terrain as our national liberation movement. It is an illusion to think that this project should or could be dealt with primarily with repressive means at a security level. The neo-liberal project has to be contested politically and ideologically – in multi-party elections, in legislatures, in policy-making, in the media, in the cultural, moral and religious domains, in NGOs, in mass-based formations and in mass mobilisation.

This is not to say that our new democratic government should dispense with all security and intelligence capacity, on the contrary. We need to be vigilant, and we need to ensure that the genuinely counter-revolutionary ultra-right is not allowed to re-group, that this ultra-right does not re-establish itself within criminal syndicates, and that these forces do not coalesce, in one way or another, with the neo-liberal project, or even infiltrate and undermine our own movement.

However, a failure to properly analyse the nature of the principal strategic threat to our NDR can result in clumsy and self-defeating counter-measures, or to a misguided abandonment of key sites of political and ideological struggle. We sometimes hear comrades saying, for instance, "What’s the point of engaging? The media, or the universities, or the NGOs, or parliamentary debates and oversight, are inherently anti-ANC". While expressing a sometimes understandable frustration, this kind of attitude is extremely misguided. It disarms us on the very terrain where, precisely, the neo-liberal project poses its most serious challenges.

The main class force behind the neo-liberal project is, within our country, drawn from the established and dominant factions of capital – largely white. Their strength derives from:

• The global hegemony of neo-liberalism, and the resulting domination of its values in everything from financial news to TV
  soapies.
• Their substantial resource base, and, therefore, their ability to fund research, own and influence the media, and to hold government to hostage through threats of economic disinvestment.

Their principal strategic weaknesses are:

• Their historical origins in a colonial and apartheid-led capitalist accumulation process. It is a class that is still, overwhelmingly, marked in its composition, habits and assumptions by these origins; and, therefore
• It is a class that does not have a secure and organic relationship with the new political elite.
• Above all, the major strategic weakness of the neo-liberal project is that it is singularly incapable of resolving the huge challenges that face our country and continent.

In terms of advancing their project, the dominant factions of the capitalist class in our country are astute enough not to put all of their neo-liberal eggs into one political party basket.

The Democratic Alliance is, clearly, a significant political vehicle for advancing the neo-liberal project. It enjoys considerable support and sympathy from a range of media, NGOs, business associations, think-tanks and external forces. The DA articulates the neo-liberal project, more or less, in an unalloyed form. It hopes to contain our new democracy within the horizons of a narrow electoral and individual rights dispensation. It is robust in articulating the economic interests of the established capitalist class and its supporting cast among the powerful, the privileged and the well-resourced. It campaigns for greater liberalisation, rapid privatisation, a flexible labour market, lower taxes for the rich, a lean and mean state, a more or less narrow law and order approach to crime, and the deployment of the South African state within our region to secure the interests of our own multinationals and white commercial farmers.

The DA was initiated primarily by the DP (formerly the PFP), historically a small, liberal white parliamentary party that operated as an opposition force within the margins of the white parliamentary dispensation in the apartheid era. In 1994 the DP obtained a mere 2% of the vote, essentially from its white, English-speaking, upper-middle class suburban base. However, under Tony Leon, the DP succeeded in building considerable media profile and electoral momentum, reaching (as the DA) an electoral high-point of some 17% in 2000.

Under the umbrella of the DA, the DP succeeded in rallying a range of minority parties and constituencies – including the NNP, and the Freedom Front. These forces were mobilised on the basis of diverse minority fears, prejudices and aspirations. Programmatically, the DA project was held together on the basis of a common commitment to a range of neo-liberal objectives (privatisation, liberalisation, and a flexible labour market). In practice, many of the white Afrikaner nationalists, or marginalised Coloured workers, or career politicians from the apartheid past who supported the DA would have difficulty in explaining how liberalisation or privatisation would advance the cause of the Afrikaans language, or entrench social security grants. However, for a time at least, the DP/DA had nearly a fifth of the electorate marching happily to the neo-liberal tune. The real glue that held the DA together was die-hard opposition to the ANC, rooted in the fear of "domination" by an African majority. In short, the DA represented a fundamentally schizophrenic project – a liberal Party of privilege moved rightwards, flirting with the most reactionary racist prejudices, in order to build an electoral base; and a wide-range of racist remnants from the apartheid past, began to recite neo-liberal mantras in order to demonstrate their "modernity".

The strategic political objective of the DA was to prevent the consolidation of what the neo-liberals describe as "one party dominance" under the ANC. The intention was to use a provincial power base in the Western Cape, and the status of "official opposition" to mount a serious electoral challenge to the ANC in the medium term.

However, as a result of

• subjective weaknesses in the leadership, including political naivete and a tendency to clumsy, high-handed manipulation (white South African liberals have never been in political power, and have always operated vicariously through the Colonial Office in London, or through engagement with a variety dominant white racist parties);
• objective contradictions within the multi-ethnic and multi-class electoral front which the glue of oppositionist
  fundamentalism could no longer hold together; and
• the difficulty of using an oppositionist stance (rooted in fears of the African majority) as a spring-board to move beyond minority constituencies into African townships

…the DA neo-liberal project has now suffered a serious set-back to its hegemonic aspirations, with the break-away of the NNP, and the loss of power in the Western Cape. However, the project is far from expended, and in electoral terms, the DA (in whatever re-constituted form it re-emerges) is likely to continue to pose the most significant electoral challenge to the ANC.

The neo-liberal class project has also flirted with (and been flirted with by) the Inkatha Freedom Party. In the 1970s and to some extent in the 1980s many white South African liberals (and also certain international liberal circles) saw in Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi the best hope of building an alternative black movement to the ANC and its alliance. There have been many projects that have never been unambiguously embraced, nor entirely rejected by the IFP – dreams of a Cold War-era liberal anti-ANC/SACP front, of an Afrikaner/Zulu alliance against the "Xhosa" dominated ANC, and even of a Volksfront/Zulu armed counter-revolutionary struggle on the eve of the 1994 democratic breakthrough.

The IFP over more than two decades has also liked to present its economic policies as "liberal", as "pro-free market". However, what essentially holds the IFP together is the dominant personality of its long-standing leader, its institutional apparatus rooted in traditional and patriarchal domination of the KZN rural hinterland, and Zulu ethnic allegiances, especially amongst the rural poor, and amongst marginalized urban dwellers. The IFP is the only other political party (outside of the ANC-alliance) with a substantial mass-base among the African urban and especially rural poor.

The ANC has, correctly, pursued a strategy of co-operation, including co-operation in government with the IFP. This co-operation is premised on prioritising the needs of the African rural and urban poor. There are many objective contradictions between the interests and aspirations of the IFP mass base and the IFP party machinery. These contradictions have been managed historically through a combination of ethnic ideology, patronage and coercion. With the inauguration and consolidation of democratic governance, especially at the provincial and local level, the scope available for patronage and coercion is diminishing – but not without considerable struggles.

We can expect the co-operation agreement with the IFP to be bumpy, and we can expect the DA and other neo-liberal forces to attempt to exploit any fall-out.

The neo-liberal project and the media

Partly because of its global dominance, neo-liberalism influences a wide range of civil society formations in our society, including the media. The SACP, the broader ANC-led alliance and, indeed, our democratic Constitution are committed to fostering a robust, independent and diverse media, as an important dimension of our emerging democracy. However, consciously or otherwise, neo-liberal assumptions play a central role in the ways in which much of the media report on and interpret our reality.

There are the obvious ways in which this happens. For instance, the fact that the (capitalist) "sentiments" and "concerns" of "the market" are constantly privileged, in terms of profile, air-time and print-space, in much of the media (including, sadly, in the public broadcaster itself). These capitalist class "sentiments" and "concerns" are presented as if they were neutral, natural phenomena or "non-negotiable rules of the game". These perspectives are reinforced, culturally and ideologically, by the barrage of commercials, syndicated columns and imported serials and other material in our media that promote neo-liberal perspectives and values, including narrow competitive individualism, brand fetishism, and vacuous consumerism.

But there are also the less obvious, but more insidious assumptions that are often dominant paradigms in the media. In particular, the main (actual and potential) locations of popular power –

• mass organisation, including trade unions and the Alliance, itself;
• substantial and relatively secure political power (thanks to a two-thirds
  ANC electoral majority); and
• the broader public and parastatal sectors and their resources –

are all constantly denigrated in the media. Having won political power, the majority of South Africans are presented with a daily fare of media coverage that, fundamentally, serves to demoralise any faith in politics, or the state, or the public sector, or popular organisation. Politics is presented in the most cynical terms. Commercial radio stations (which ARE, literally, talk shops) routinely present legislatures, or NEDLAC, or important international conferences as "talk shops". Politicians and state functionaries are assumed to be intrinsically lazy and corrupt. The public sector is simply tax-guzzling. Policy debates within and beyond the alliance are reduced to careerist rivalries, or to signs of "imminent splits". The very sites of power that, potentially, can give substance to democratic participation to the majority, are continuously presented as a "threat to democracy".

There are "left" variants of this neo-liberal, anti-politics politics, and it is notable that the media often give inordinate space to these "left" variations on the same theme. Social movement "oppositionism", cynicism about institutionalised politics and the general driving of wedges between popular aspirations and political power are familiar themes.

A key paradigm of interpretation, informing all of this, is the (neo-liberal) concept of "one party dominant" systems. South Africa is held to be such a case – a political dispensation that is "nominally" a multi-party electoral system, but which, because of the ANC-led alliance’s solid majority, is really a single party system for all practical purposes. This is presented as the greatest "threat" to democracy.

It is this paradigm that informs most of the media coverage of our own Party. The SACP receives occasional (and usually hypocritical) accolades when the media hopes that we are about to "break the log-jam", "lead a split" from the "one-party dominant" ANC. But we are dismissed as "irrelevant" or "cowardly", when we re-affirm our strategic commitment to fostering the unity of our alliance.

The strategic appreciation that a solid majority and substantial continuity in governance might be critical in a complicated and divided transitional society is seldom entertained in the media. By contrast, the power of unelected transnational corporations, with budgets larger than many countries, tends not to be highlighted or even noted as a threat to democracy.

We are not saying that the media should not play an active, critical and independent role. The media should certainly fearlessly expose corruption and incompetence. Nor are we saying that there are not many mistakes made from the side of our NLM that play directly into neo-liberal cynicism about the political domain. But, at the end of the day, it is this paradigm, and the agenda that lies behind it, that constitute the principal strategic threat to our new democracy.

In our post-1994 South African reality, cynicism about politics also plays into and is reinforced by a range of neo-colonial, racist and Afro-pessimistic discourses. Corruption is presented as if it were a new reality, as if it did not occur in the private sector, and as if it were overwhelmingly associated with a new elite. Majority rule in South Africa is presented as if it were always on the brink of collapsing into "barbarism".

The dominant media paradigm that determines what stories are told, and how they are told, serves, in the end to disempower the majority of us.

The neo-liberal project and the ANC

The fact that the DA likes to present itself as the most consistent voice of neo-liberalism, and as the most loyal friend of big capital, does not mean that the dominant factions of private capital in South Africa will have placed all their bets on this party. Since at least the late 1980s, the dominant factions of private capital have invested considerable energy in seeking to influence and transform the ANC and, indeed, to a certain extent, the progressive trade union movement in our country.

The key objective of the neo-liberal project directed at the ANC is, of course, to secure its support for a neo-liberal agenda using the considerable resources and leverage enjoyed by big capital.

Aspects of this project include:

• the "modernisation" of the ANC into a more or less orthodox electoral
  party, susceptible to electoral "alternance" (i.e. of being voted
  in and out of office), and, therefore,
• shifting the ANC away from its movement traditions of mass mobilisation
  and popular participation
• the breaking of the Tripartite Alliance, which is seen as an historical
  and ideological "anomaly", and as a threat to moderating the ANC;
  and
• the cultivation of an emerging capitalist stratum from within the ANC cadre,
  in order to develop more organic links to the ruling party.

Considerable resources are constantly thrown into this project. The slightest hint of intra-alliance difference is seized upon in the media, and editorial elegies for the alliance are written every second week, as they have been for the past twelve years.

This project, directed at the ANC, has not fundamentally succeeded, but it has had some impact, as we shall go on to examine in the following sections.

THE CLASS AND IDELOGICAL DYNAMICS WITIN THE NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT AND ALLIANCE

The elaboration of an effective strategy and tactics for the SACP depends critically on an honest analysis of the ideological and class terrain on which we are operating. A core feature of this terrain is our NLM (including the alliance) itself.

In approaching this topic we are guided, in the first place, by a central principle:

unity does not mean the absence of difference and diversity.

There are strong traditions within our movement to foster the maximum unity, and certainly the SACP must do everything to constantly be a factor for such unity within our NLM and within our huge mass base. However, the artificial or spin-doctored presentation of a monolithic "unity" might be the very way in which we frustrate any possibility of forging a real, not bureaucratic or sentimental, unity. When a spin-doctored "unity" ends up being impossible to sustain, and differences impossible to deny, it can easily lead to real factionalism. If unity can only be monolithic, then it becomes impossible to respect, to learn from and to constructively debate legitimate differences. Competing perspectives are individualised, or labeled as conspiracies, or sell-outs. To clearly and maturely understand legitimate differences, and to analyse the organic origins of these differences, is, precisely, the only sound basis on which to forge and sustain real unity.

The diverse traditions that underpin our NLM and Alliance

The ANC-led NLM is, by strategic choice and design, a broad-based, multi-class, radical, national democratic movement. The ANC, its alliance partners, and the broad movement have emerged out of decades of struggle, and (this is our great strength) we have been (and continue to be) influenced by a range of radical, progressive ideologies – both indigenous and borrowed. We can trace our legacy from diverse resources and traditions. To mention some of the most prominent, without being exhaustive:

• Pre-colonial communal traditions (that have come to us, diversely,
  as stokvels, lekgotlas, and general notions of ubuntu and restorative justice)
  and, of course, the heroic, early anti-colonial and anti-slavery resistance
  wars (whose immensely positive legacy is still distantly present in our songs
  and a general sense of resistant capacity);
• the mass defiance traditions of the Indian Congress movement, pioneered
  in South Africa, elaborated and extended in India itself, and returning to
  our own struggle in the late 1940s and onwards;
• traditions of humans rights and Bills of Rights appropriated and
  adopted from progressive liberal and religious traditions, including the enlightened
  mission schools and colleges that played a critical role in the formation
  of several generations of ANC leadership;
• more populist and charismatic traditions from, amongst other realities,
  syncretic church movements;
• socialist traditions, and especially, but not exclusively, the Marxist-Leninist
  tradition associated with the international communist movement;
• Afro-American, pan-africanist, and black consciousness philosophies
  and practices, etc.

We have forged our own recognisable, ANC-led movement culture out of these, and other influences. These various currents have been adapted, fused and transformed to meet the needs of our own struggle.

At different times each of these traditions have received varying emphases and interpretations, and they have enjoyed, within the fusion of ANC and alliance culture, greater or lesser influence. Different traditions have tended to hold more or less appeal for different classes, strata and generations within our broad movement. The more populist, charismatic traditions, for instance, have often enjoyed most influence amongst newly urbanised, newly proletarianised "urban-outsiders". The Afro-American, pan-africanist, and BC traditions have, as one would expect, tended to be most influential among certain strata of the black intelligentsia, etc. – but there is nothing absolutely fixed or predetermined about this.

Managing unity and diversity

The ANC (like the SACP) is not a federation of factions or tendencies, it is a single movement. But what this means is that, as a result of democratic processes, the ANC (like the SACP) adopts policy positions, programmes of action, etc., and all members are bound by these decisions. It does not mean that the decisions are not the result of debate, or that diversity and difference have simply evaporated. More importantly, decisions taken by the ANC (or SACP) while they may sometimes represent one view (a majority perspective) at the expense of other views, very often represent a management of differences. Maturely admitting to, helping to surface and understand underlying differences is essential to properly managing and fostering unity.

The multi-class character of the ANC, and the new class and social dynamics within the NLM

Since the late 1920s, the Communist Party in South Africa has strategically allied itself with the ANC with the clear understanding that the ANC is a multi-class national liberation movement. The Communist Party has never sought to suppress or undermine this multi-class character of the ANC. Communists and non-communists alike have, over the decades, built the ANC into a radical democratic liberation movement capable of mobilising, organising and articulating the aspirations of all classes and strata that have suffered from national oppression, and that continue to suffer from its persisting legacy.

In taking up this broad national struggle, our NLM has won the active support of an even wider range of democratic forces committed to the construction of a non-racial, non-sexist, united and democratic South Africa.

Throughout its history, the ANC’s multi-class character has expressed itself not just in terms of its membership, but also, and correctly, in its programmatic and strategic perspectives.

However, the balance of class forces within the ANC has varied considerably over time as a result of both objective and subjective factors. The ANC’s character has, historically, reflected changing objective class realities amongst the oppressed, varying levels of class consciousness, organisation and political capacity among different classes and strata. These have influenced, and have been influenced by, the subjective strategy and class line of the ANC itself at different times.

For instance, the militant shift to an active, mobilisational programme of action and a mass-line approach to organisation in the late 1940s and 1950s was a critical qualitative moment in the ANC’s development. It was related to objective realities – war-time industrialisaton, growing urbanisation, and extensive unionisation. It was also related to significant subjective factors – including the impact of key CPSA leaders, and the influence of radical national liberation movements elsewhere in the world on the thinking of a younger generation in the ANC.

The post-1994 reality has resulted in a relatively dynamic social transformation and stratification of the ANC’s own tens of thousands strong cadre, and core mass base. While the development of black fractions of the bourgeoisie has been extremely modest until now, many of the few hundreds of individuals involved are directly and dynamically linked to the ANC. The access to state power has seen tens of thousands of ANC (and alliance) cadres moving into senior political and management positions within state and parastatal institutions.

The dominant white factions of the bourgeoisie, especially the most strategically far-sighted, sensing their own isolation from institutional political power, and fearing pressure from below, have pre-emptively moved to promote black professionals, managers and black share-holding.

A number of government policies, from land reform to privatisation, have also helped to advance the aspirations of a range of emerging capitalist and petty bourgeois strata.

Many, not necessarily all, of these developments are inevitable in a society, still dominated by capitalism, in which the ruling party and its alliance are committed to the removal, once and for all, of the vast array of apartheid racist laws, regulations and institutional arrangements that have curbed and frustrated the aspirations of millions of black people – including petty traders, professionals, academics, commercial farmers, business-people and traditional leaders.

Unfortunately, these advances made by some black strata, coincide with another range of (largely objective) processes under-way that have already been noted in this Programme (chapter 1, section "The restructuring of the working class"). There is a radical restructuring (and objective weakening) of the working class underway, involving massive job losses, casualisation, out-sourcing, and marginalisation into survivalist activity. (These negative developments are occurring, notwithstanding other important gains for workers in terms of formal rights, for instance).

These various processes taken together have, over the past decade, seen the perpetuation of an accumulation regime that is basically unfavourable to workers and the poor, that sustains and deepens class inequality within our society, while de-racialising (sometimes only marginally) the upper and middle social strata. The objective balance of forces is dynamic, but generally increasingly unfavourable to working people. This is likely to impact upon, and be impacted upon by the balance of class forces at play within the multi-class ANC.

Of course, it would be entirely wrong to see the objective development and advance of new class strata as entirely negative for our liberation movement. These realities bring the possibility of new skills, greater resources and many other assets that were previously unavailable to our movement. However, over several years, the ANC itself has been self-critically reviewing some of the potential and actual negative consequences related to these dynamic realities as they impact upon its own cadre and structures. The dangers of careerism, of the abuse of political office for enrichment and individual accumulation, corruption, social distance, gate-keeping and bureaucratization of structures are some of the concerns the ANC has consistently raised.

The SACP fully supports this ongoing critical assessment. The Party, moreover, believes that this critical assessment, while it must certainly embrace moral, behavioral and organizational considerations, must also relate to a critical assessment of policy choices and of programmatic perspectives. Do existing policies and programmes effectively counter the negative phenomena, or are they directly contributing to them?

The SACP reaffirms its commitment to its strategic alliance with a multi-class ANC. We affirm the legitimate presence of a variety of classes and strata within the ANC, and these classes and strata have every right to articulate their class aspirations. In fact, the honest and transparent articulation of these aspirations should be encouraged, so that the potential contribution of such aspirations to our overall NDR can be thoughtfully debated, assessed and appropriately weighted.

However, there is a real danger that new class forces and strata will hegemonise the ANC, its programmes, policies and character. On the ideological terrain of our NLM, there are several ways in which this danger (consciously or unconsciously) asserts itself:

Attempts to re-define the concept of "motive forces".

In the last few years, there have been attempts to re-define the concept of "motive forces" in the NDR, adding a great variety of new strata, and categories. This basically confuses the concept of "motive force" with a list of every conceivable social category that might benefit from the NDR.

We have, as a national liberation movement, advanced the slogan "A better life for all". This is a correct slogan for the NDR, and it underlines the basic point that ALL South Africans stand to benefit from the consolidation of a united, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa. However, precisely for this reason, if the concept "motive force" is to have any strategic meaning, it cannot be based on a list of all social categories that "have an interest" in, or "that stand to benefit" from the NDR. This would mean that everyone in South Africa is a motive force.

The concept "motive force" refers to those social forces (in our case, national and class) that, because of

• their adverse location within structured oppressive and/or exploitative
  realities,
• their numerical weight,
• their strategic location, and
• long-term objective strategic interests

have the capacity to act as the motive force propelling sustained, ongoing and thorough revolutionary transformation – and not just piecemeal and partial reform.

In this sense, the key national motive force in our revolution is black people in general, and Africans in particular. This strategic statement does not run counter to our long-standing commitment to non-racialism. On the contrary, understanding blacks in general and Africans in particular as the critical national motive force is the precondition for building a fundamentally non-racial society. It is a strategic statement that informs our approach to many things, including organizational prioritization, programmatic focus, and campaigning emphasis. Many confusions result, however, when this characterisation of the key national motive force is turned into a narrow and excluding nationalism, or abused for personal reasons (in leadership contests, for instance). It is a strategic characterization of our key national mass base, it is not an evaluation of the worth of individual comrades or their views.

The leading class motive force in our NDR is the working class. Because of:

• its sheer numbers (the South African working class, uniquely for an African
  country, is numerically the majority class in our society),
• its class consciousness and revolutionary traditions,
• its organisational capacity, and,
• above all, its strategic location at the heart of an oppressive and exploitative
  accumulation regime that persists from the pre-1994 period,

the working class is the leading class motive force in our NDR.

The working class is not necessarily the most oppressed social category within our society (although some strata of the working class are, indeed, among the most exploited and oppressed). The leading role of the working class is determined by the combination of its continued exploitation and oppression AND its strategic capacity.

Closely allied with the working class (in its narrower sense) is the mass of unemployed, under-employed, those involved in survivalist activities – the urban and rural poor. In the broader sense, the great majority of the "poor" belong to the reserve army of labour in our society, and are, therefore, part of the broader definition of the working class.

The strategic appreciation of the leading role of the working class does not make every worker action, every working class demand or aspiration in and of itself progressive or revolutionary.

As in the case of the leading national motive force (blacks in general, Africans in particular), so, the strategic recognition of the working class as the leading class motive force, should not be evoked to exclude other classes and strata from our strategic assessments, from our policy and programmatic perspectives, or from our organisational work.

Emerging black capitalist strata, petty black traders, black professionals, traditional leaders, women in general, the disabled, youth, children, black intellectuals, intellectuals in general, white workers, white democrats – all of these social forces should receive dedicated organisational attention. However they have, in recent times, all been referred to, in one context or another and inappropriately, as "motive forces".

On a given issue or progressive campaign, any one of these categories may indeed play a leading role. Progressively minded, young white males, for instance, played the leading role in the anti-conscription campaign in the latter years of apartheid. However, this campaign only had any prospect of transformational success insofar as it aligned itself broadly (as it did) with the key motive forces of our NDR.

The SACP has, since its origins, understood white workers to be part of the working class, and therefore, potentially, part of the leading class motive force. However, it is only insofar as white workers throw in their lot with the majority of workers that they will be able to play such a role.

White workers (or emerging black capitalists, or the disabled, or the youth) as stand-alone categories, however important or deserving their aspirations might be, are NOT motive forces of the NDR.

Attempts to portray the NDR as a "capitalist" stage, in which the key strategic objective is to "develop capitalist forces of production"

While the ANC’s two key strategic alliance partners (the SACP and COSATU) are socialist, the ANC itself is not a socialist organisation. Some, however, have sought to conclude from this that the ANC "must, therefore, be pro-capitalist".

The SACP does not agree. Consistently, since at least 1955 and the Freedom Charter, the ANC’s programmatic and strategic perspectives have allowed for a practical unity to be forged between two progressive but somewhat different critiques of capitalism and imperialism.

The ANC’s 1997 Strategy and Tactics document refers, for instance, to "the symbiotic link between capitalism and national oppression" in our country (p.8). It refers to a world threatened by "capitalism’s unbridled licence, with particularly developing countries having surrendered their sovereignty", and it notes that "the capitalist system has not resolved the disparities within even the most advanced capitalist countries" (p.24).

These are accurate observations, and they constitute (amongst many other things) the basis for a principled unity between socialists and non-socialists within the ANC-led alliance. But these critiques within the ANC’s Strategy and Tactics document can be based on two different perspectives:

• On the one hand there is the perspective of those whose critique of capitalism
  (in South Africa) and of imperialism (in the world) is a critique of "actually
  existing" capitalism. In this case, the assumption is, for instance,
  that the "symbiotic link between capitalism and national oppression"
  in our country is the consequence of a particular, specific (perhaps aberrant)
  and relatively contingent history. South African capitalism simply has, perhaps,
  to be "deracialised" or "better regulated". From this
  perspective, likewise, imperialism tends to be critiqued as an aberrant distortion
  of capitalism (that can, perhaps, be regulated, negotiated or persuaded away),
  rather than an endemic development of capitalism;

and, on the other hand

• the perspective of the SACP and others, whose opposition to capitalism
  is fundamental, rooted in a socialist critique of the capitalist mode of production
  itself. This second perspective sees national/colonial/imperialist oppression
  as absolutely integral to the world capitalist system. From this latter perspective,
  there is no substantial surpassing of national oppression or of imperialist
  under-development, without concerted, anti-systemic measures, without, in
  fact, an advance towards socialism and a substantial surpassing of the capitalist
  mode of production itself.

The SACP believes that, in the current circumstances, it is correct to keep this secondary (non-antagonistic) contradiction between two different critiques of capitalism at play within our broad national liberation movement. Given the immediate challenges, and the balance of forces nationally and internationally, it would be both a tactical and strategic error to try to force a decisive outcome to this debate, one way or the other.

This is not to assert that both views are "equally right". In our view, they are not. Nor is this to say that we should fudge or postpone the debate. It is a debate that must be conducted openly and continuously within and beyond our alliance, but not factionally, not with a view to dividing the ANC and ANC-led movement on this issue.

However, what is critical is that we should recognise that, since at least 1955 and the Freedom Charter, the strategic perspectives of the ANC have included a critique of (at the very least "actually existing") capitalism and imperialism. We must boldly resist any attempt, in the present, to water down this cardinal principle of the ANC’s programmatic perspective. While revisionist attempts to move away from this critique might not be a dominant ideological current within the ANC at present, there have been some tentative theoretical formulations in the direction of saying: "The NDR is a capitalist stage. The principle economic task of the NDR is the development of the capitalist forces of production." These formulations even sometimes try to present themselves as "fundamentally socialist" – "we need to complete capitalist development in order to lay the foundations for socialism"!

These formulations are based on:

• an undialectical, stageist and essentially evolutionist understanding of
  society and history;
• the assumption that the key economic challenge in South Africa is that
  capitalist development (after a century and a quarter of coercing our entire
  society into dependence on capitalist market relations), is "incomplete";
• the mechanical separation of capitalist forces of production (as if they
  were merely technical realities) from capitalist relations of production;
  and
• the separation of capitalist development from capitalist under-development,
  as if the latter were not the product of the former, and as if more of the
  former (unfettered capitalist development) would somehow resolve the latter
  (the crisis of underdevelopment).

This approach (which, in essence, is that of the political forces like DA) cannot make sense of a great range of actual policies the ANC has been implementing, for instance the introduction of:

• greater regulation into the labour market (as opposed to an unfettered,
  flexible labour market),
• labour-intensive public works programmes (which deliberately run counter
  to applying the most technologically advanced capitalist forces of production);
  or
• black economic empowerment measures, even in the narrowest sense of BEE
  (insisting, for instance, that a percentage of privatised share-holding should
  go to emerging capitalists).

All of these policies, designed to overcome the systemic underdevelopment crisis of our society, may very well retard rather than advance the unfettered development of capitalist forces of production , as the dominant factions of capital never tire of telling us. But, precisely, our strategic objective is national democratic revolutionary transformation, not the development of the capitalist forces of production.

The SACP believes that it is absolutely mistaken to present the NDR as a "stage", in which the key economic objective is to "develop capitalist forces of production". The SACP believes, instead, that the key economic objective of our current phase is to set our country on a growth and development path that is capable of overcoming the systemic underdevelopment of our society.

Given that, globally and nationally, capitalism is the overwhelmingly dominant reality, such a growth and development path cannot simply ignore the realities of capitalism. But nor can such a path merely be guided by the unfettered, "free play" of capitalist forces of production. As the ANC itself has affirmed, this will require a mixed economy, and working "with and against" the logic of the capitalist market. The SACP accepts that, in the given conditions, a progressive, NDR growth and development path will, in many instances, inevitably have the effect of strengthening some aspects of capitalist accumulation (with their own negative consequences, and requiring constant, anti-systemic measures). But this is very different from identifying the "development of capitalist forces of production" as the key strategic objective of our struggle in the present.

Attempts to prioritise "black economic empowerment" over the eradication of systemic poverty and inequality.

The SACP obviously supports the idea of black economic empowerment (BEE) in its widest meaning. It is, however, a concept that comes, largely, from a particular trajectory of the civil rights struggle in the United States. It is a concept that has not, historically, been part of our own national liberation theory. This, in itself, is not an argument against the concept, but it is important to note that it is open to many interpretations.

The ANC and the Black Economic Empowerment Commission have, for instance, both defined BEE to embrace not just the promotion of a black ownership stake in the commanding capitalist heights, or of black advancement into the upper strata of management. They have argued for a very wide definition of BEE, to include job creation, the delivery of basic socio-economic needs, and assistance to co-operatives and SMMEs.

However, when it comes to practical policy measures, there is often an inordinate focusing on the promotion of black capitalist ownership and senior management promotion dimensions of BEE. What is more, it is often assumed that any form of BEE will automatically be good for all black people in our country. In this way, trade-offs and competing class interests are masked.

For instance, privatization has been used to leverage a percentage of black private ownership over key sectors of the economy. This form of BEE obviously benefits an emerging black capitalist strata, who might not, otherwise, have had access to private capital. However, the impact of privatizing utilities delivering basic needs, for instance, may well have an extremely negative impact of black workers and poor. For them, it might be black economic dis-empowerment. Indeed, the fact of an insistence on a percentage of black ownership in the privatization processs might compound the problems for the poor. The transnationals and other large corporates who are the principal beneficiaries of privatization, often regard their minority black partners as an additional burden justifies even higher prices than their already unacceptable "market-related" pricing.

The class-blind approach to BEE is compounded in many other ways. It is very common to hear arguments that say that privatization measures, or other policies that ensure black share-holding will ensure that "for the first time blacks are able to participate in the mining industry, or the telecommunications industry, etc.". As if black-workers had not been, and do not remain, the back-bone of the mining industry and every other industry in South Africa! The class-blind (capitalist) assumptions of certain versions of BEE emerge with crystal clarity in these cases – workers are not participants in the economy!

In supporting the broad goals of a widely-defined BEE, the SACP will insist that class and gender realities are always factored into any discussion of concrete BEE programmes and policies. It is critical that:

• different class (and gender) interests at play in BEE are always made transparent,
• that we never assume that black economic empowerment for some is necessarily
  empowerment for all black people, and
• all specific BEE programmes and policies must be assessed against the overall
  objectives of our NDR.

The present accumulation path that we have noted above, a path that is deeply rooted in the capitalist realities of our society, and a path that is generally unfavourable to workers and the poor, makes the systemic eradication of poverty and inequality extremely difficult. The danger in this situation is that a narrow version of BEE will increasingly be substituted for the more complex challenge of overcoming systemic poverty and inequality.

The three dominant paradigms within our NLM over the last decade

The potential danger of non-working class forces hegemonising the ANC-led NDR project needs to be linked to a wider discussion. In order to ground an effective strategy and tactics for the SACP it is also necessary to go further than just noting a diversity of ideological traditions within our broad NLM (and indeed within the SACP). We need to ask the question: What, over the last ten years, have been the dominant ideological paradigms within the ANC-led alliance?

At the risk of being schematic we suggest that there have been three major paradigms. It must be emphasised that these are not factions, but strands of thinking found within the movement. We are referring to paradigms, ways of thinking about and analysing our contemporary reality, these are NOT labels to be attached to individuals, or to groups of individuals. These ways of thinking about reality have emerged out of older traditions and legacies. These three paradigms are certainly not water-tight compartments, they continuously cross-fertilise and influence each other, and they characteristically (and usually correctly) present themselves in hybrid forms. Nor do they neatly begin and end at the organisational borders of the three component parts of the Tripartite Alliance. These paradigms are:

• An Africanist or nationalist paradigm;
• A modernising, progressive, pragmatic paradigm; and
• A socialist paradigm.

However fluid and hybridised they may be, these paradigms are real enough and they tend to manifest themselves whenever the ANC and its broader NLM have to adopt a position on any of the major challenges of the day.

Each of the three paradigms has strengths and potential weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

Strengths and weaknesses of the Africanist/nationalist paradigm

This paradigm responds to what remains the principal, defining contradiction of our society (the persisting legacy of racial oppression of the majority). It is a paradigm that is potentially attuned to the aggressive character of imperialism. It is also a current that has most consistently foregrounded the importance of a major effort to place the struggle against the marginalisation of our continent onto the international agenda.

However, if it becomes detached from a consistent working class ideological grounding, and from a systematic Marxist scientific analysis of domestic, regional and global realities, this approach can easily degenerate into a voluntaristic subjectivism – with some of the following characteristics:

• A tendency to greatly exaggerate the possibilities of a continental renewal
  – or to associate such a renewal with relatively superficial realities. This
  is often linked with a failure to adequately analyse the deeply entrenched,
  structured character of global capitalism, and its systemic reproduction of
  Africa’s peripheralisation and under-development;

When the shortfall between exaggerated and/or short-term expectations of African renewal, or of South African growth and development and actual reality becomes apparent, this approach to reality has a tendency to move into denial or into subjectivist explanations – allegations of "conspiracies" (whether from the "left" or "right"), or an overly psychologised explanation for persisting injustices (white racism, or global Afro-pessimism).

Strengths and weaknesses of the pragmatic paradigm

A progressive, "modernising", more pragmatic paradigm has come strongly to the fore in our movement, especially (as we might expect) given the huge technical and professional challenges presented by the ANC’s having become the ruling party in 1994.

The great strength of this general paradigm is, precisely, its attention to technical and managerial detail and its focus on acquiring skills.

In the mid-1990s this "pragmatic" tendency, greatly encouraged by powerful forces within our country and externally, has played a leading role in advancing (supposedly "neutral") "technocratic" solutions to our transitional challenges – endless strictures about "international best practice", and the need to "align ourselves" with "global trends". At least until a year or two ago, "globalisation" tended to be presented in a uni-dimensional way, as a more or less entirely benign "development and extension" of the "forces of production".

Many of the policy and practical choices favoured by this general paradigm are increasingly less-assured, both because the triumphalist assumptions of neo-liberalism in the early 1990s are now more challenged internationally, and, above all, because of practical experience over some eight years here in South Africa.

The fundamental weakness of this general tendency is that, without a systematic analysis of global capitalism and its principal features and main trajectories, and without, therefore a strategic approach that addresses itself to fundamental structural transformation of our society, pragmatism on its own is quite incapable of overcoming the historical legacy of CST. After eight years of governance this is more and more evident.

The strengths and weaknesses of the socialist paradigm

The socialist tendency within our movement is not identical to the SACP as an organisation, for two main reasons. On the one hand, there are significant socialist forces partially outside of the SACP (not least within COSATU itself). On the other hand, the SACP is an indigenous and rooted reality, the other two paradigmatic perspectives (the "Africanist" and "pragmatic") exist legitimately within the SACP, although their relative weight and influence might be different within the SACP as compared with the ANC.

However, notwithstanding these qualifications, it is important to note that the SACP is overwhelmingly the leading, the most coherent and the most rooted socialist political force within our society. To talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the socialist tendency within the NLM is, therefore, to address oneself principally, but not mechanically, to the SACP.

It is a measure of the rootedness, the historical legacy, the strategic capacity, and theoretical dynamism, and the practical commitment of thousands of Communist cadres that the SACP is, today, larger than it has ever been in its more than 80 years of existence. The SACP has survived the challenging 1990s as a united and relatively dynamic force. The Party has significant influence within our movement, within many key institutions and, indeed, within our broader society.

However, it would be true to say that, while the SACP’s influence is now greater within the progressive trade union movement than at any other time in the last several decades, the Party’s influence within the ANC is not as hegemonic as it was in the two-and-a-half decades between 1960 and the mid-1980s.

This earlier hegemony occurred in the context of a seemingly powerful alternative global power bloc (based around the existence of the Soviet Union); and major national liberation advances in the South influenced by Marxism-Leninism (Cuba, Vietnam, Southern Africa, etc.).

The SACP is now, manifestly, operating in a different terrain. We should not be surprised or unduly demoralised if, with the external conditions favouring our hegemony having changed so dramatically, there has been a considerable subjective impact within our movement. This has manifest itself in several ways

• A significant proportion of the former Party leadership drifted away from
  Party membership in the first half of the 1990s;
• in the same period, there was considerable fluidity within the Party’s
  internal ideological orientation;
• moves, from certain quarters within our movement, particularly over the
  last three years, to marginalise the Party, or to greatly diminish the Party’s
  influence.

Faced with these challenges and uncertainties, including also certain tendencies even within our Party towards liquidationism, there is one obvious dominant danger, it is a tendency within the SACP, and also within COSATU and a broader "left". This is the danger of a socialist (or left) isolationism. It comes in several variations:

• asserting the independence of the Party, or COSATU, by seeking
  to distinguish every action we take from the ANC, seeking to prove at
  all times that we are different from the ANC, irrespective of the issues at
  hand. There is no contradiction between an independent SACP or an independent
  COSATU and the building of a strong ANC with the capacity to lead the struggle
  for deepening and advancing the NDR. In many respects an independent SACP
  and an independent COSATU are indispensable, rather than compromised, components
  of the national liberation movement. These tendencies lead in turn to
• an excessive and mechanical inward focus on building the SACP (or
  COSATU) structures (as important as building these structures is)– to the
  exclusion of understanding the role and importance of the SACP and COSATU
  in building the ANC;
• renouncing all responsibility for governing in favour of a socialist
  "purity". This variant adopts what is, in the end, a liberal cynicism
  towards state power (that it is inherently bureaucratic, venal, authoritarian
  and a sell-out), and it pits popular mobilisation against government, rather
  than seeking constantly to unify government and people.

The strategic and tactical tasks confronting the SACP on the political and
ideological terrain of our alliance

The SACP has the historic responsibility and possibility of actively engaging with its alliance partners and with the mass base of the alliance. We must do so honestly, openly and with a deep commitment to unity. It would be a serious error for the Party to isolate itself within a socialist cocoon.

Perhaps the most fundamental strategic and tactical task facing the SACP (and indeed the entire NLM) is to always seek to build the ANC, and forge the unity of the NLM based on a concrete programme of action to tackle the contemporary challenges.

It must be a unity premised on strengthening the main motive forces of the revolution, and a unity forged on the basis of democratic governance within the alliance, maximum consultation and internal debate. It is a unity that must be based on consistent and collective debates within the alliance and always seeking a common analysis and understanding of the balance of forces.

It is a unity that must be forged on the understanding that there is no single corner of our movement that has all the wisdom to carry forward our revolution. Rather, it must be based on the understanding that deepening and consolidating our revolution will be the product of the collective wisdom and mobilisation of all our people and their organisations. In addition we must foster within our NLM and alliance an understanding and practice of allowing the social and political expression of legitimate sectoral interests whilst at the same time seeking to promote unity within our ranks.

As the SACP we also need to ensure that in our movement we avoid a bureaucratic closing of ranks and an imposed "top-down" unity, based on a mechanical and sentimental approach to the Alliance, abstracted from the shifting class and ideological realities of the present period. It is very important to learn from our past, but it would be completely a-historical and defeatist if we try to "rigidify" and "freeze" the role of Alliance partners in some distant past.

In regard to what we have described as an "Africanist" paradigm, the SACP must engage with the immensely positive elements of this perspective. The dominant contradiction of our society remains the legacy of racial oppression, impacting upon blacks in general, and African people in particular. The task of the SACP, in engaging with this reality, is to deepen and develop a consistent class analysis of the challenges we confront in regard to the national question. The Party must also actively engage with and help to develop a scientific and programmatic approach to the deep-seated challenges of our continent’s continued marginalisation, and under-development. The Party must actively engage with the spontaneous anti-imperialism that subsists strongly within our NLM, however, we must, at all times seek to translate this anti-imperialism into a strategic, thoughtful and tactically intelligent anti-imperialism, avoiding the dangers of demagogic and adventurist anti-imperialism that abound in many Third World situations.

In regard to the "pragmatic" paradigm, the SACP must greatly enhance its capacity to understand, analyse and help provide policy perspectives. Any attempt from the side of the SACP to simply advance or oppose policies and programmes dogmatically, or with populist rhetoric, will not help to win a consistent socialist hegemony. The challenge is to be practical ourselves, to demonstrate convincingly that socialism is practical, indeed, it is the only practical direction for the resolution of the crisis in which our world is enmeshed. But this cannot be merely asserted, it has to be demonstrated in theory and in practice, and in a thousand sites of policy development, implementation and struggle.

In regard to the broad socialist paradigm, the SACP has a special responsibility. The SACP is the pre-eminent socialist organization within our country, and one of the few substantial Marxist political parties on our continent. However, there are many other socialist and left tendencies within our movement, and within our broader society. The SACP will continue to be a major formation for the development and renewal of socialist thinking, and a key forum for mass-based, socialist political education and activism (the two are obviously interlinked). We will engage with the broad left within our country, we will continue to seek to persuade the maximum number of socialists of the strategic centrality of the NDR, and of the ANC-led movement for any eventual socialist transition. We will continue to emphasise the importance of socialists assuming joint responsibility with all other progressives for the challenges of governance - whether in government departments, legislatures, local councils or parastatals. The oppositionist habit is self-defeating.

To fulfil these challenges, the SACP needs to constantly, and without apology, build its own independent structures, capacity, programmes and analyses. We must reiterate the importance of a formation, within our NLM, that is programmatically based on a commitment to socialism, and that is ideologically committed to approaching all challenges from a consistent working class perspective.

But, at the same time, the SACP must understand itself to be no less "nationalist", and no less "practical" than any other current within our NLM. Indeed, scientific socialism alone has the potential to:

• inform a consistent and far-reaching progressive "nationalism";
  and
• develop strategies, tactics, policies and programmes that are really practical
  – in the sense that they will actually achieve the tasks of the NDR.

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