Declaration
SACP National Strategy Conference 3-5
September 1999
We have met over three days in this National Strategy Conference as 150 SACP
delegates from all the provinces of our country, and as 40 participating
observers from the ANC, COSATU and COSATU affiliates, the Womens and Youth
Leagues, SANCO, SASCO, the National Womens Coalition, and progressive NGOs.
This has been a socialist strategy conference, a conference organised by the
SACP. But it has been deeply enriched by the active participation of all those
who have been here. This is the first and perhaps the most important
conclusion that we draw from our conference.
We are involved in a struggle, a vast transition that is about overcoming the
terrible legacy of race oppression, but also of class exploitation. The
struggle to build a democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa that is
based on the principle of from each according to their ability, to each
according to their needs has been an abiding commitment of the Communist
Party in South Africa, since our beginnings in 1921.
But it is a struggle that does not belong to us alone. We know, from
the vibrant participation of many comrades over these last three days, that the
vision of a society based on meeting social needs, and not on private
profit-taking, is a vision that we share with many others. The struggle
for that kind of society is one that we will wage with (and not against) our
alliance partners, the civic movement, progressive religious formations, and
many others. The eventual shape, character and ethos of the socialist
South Africa that will be built, sooner or later, is going to be enriched by
many forces in our country.
As communist party militants we cherish that vision of socialism like the
apple of our eye but it is not our property alone. We believe in
socialising the very project of socialism itself. This strategy conference
has left us more convinced than ever of the possibilities of doing this.
This Strategy Conference was convened as a direct result of a 10th Party
Congress Resolution. The objective of this conference was not to revise or
change the strategic perspectives adopted at the 10th Congress in July last
year, but to deepen our collective understanding of those perspectives, and to
enrich them.
The high levels of participation and the informed nature of delegates
interventions confirm, we believe, that some nine years of Communist Party
re-building, strategic debate and renewal, and real practical experience are
beginning to bear fruit in the formation of hundreds of new communist cadres,
women and men, workers, rural poor and intellectuals. This communist cadre
is located in every corner of our country, and in numerous sites of struggle and
responsibility, directly represented here at this Conference. Our
delegates have been drawn from national cabinet, provincial premiers,
legislatures, local councils, the public service, in the trade union movement,
SANCO and other social movements. Our debates and resolutions have been
greatly enriched this weekend by this vast and diverse experience.
It is no secret that the decade of the 1990s, globally, has generally been
unfavourable to progressive forces. According to the most recent UNDP
figures, 80 countries are poorer at the end of this decade than they were at the
beginning of the nineties. Reckless and avaricious speculative capital
flows more and more dominate the fortunes of the world in which we live,
casino-like decisions, made in a split-second on the basis of computer data in a
few Western capitals, literally condemn tens of thousands of people in Third
World countries, now here, now there, to misery, starvation and death.
We have not tried to blind ourselves to these realities at this Conference.
We have sought to analyse and understand soberly the power of capitalism in our
country, and in the world at large. We have not satisfied ourselves with
re-cycling slogans. But, at the end of the day, we have been guided by the
idea that the point is not just to analyse reality, but to CHANGE it.
For this reason, at this Conference, we have adopted concrete and specific
resolutions on a wide range of issues from the transformation of local
government, addressing the public service, socialising the economy, the
forthcoming WTO millennimum round, transforming and democratising gendered
power, rural development, and mobilising to meet the challenge of the HIV/Aids
epidemic.
It now remains for all of us to carry our discussions and resolutions into
all the structures of our Party, and into our broader alliance. We have
been mandated by this Strategy Conference, also, to disseminate, not just
particular resolutions, but also the spirit and style in which we have handled
debates here this weekend. This means no more easy labeling applied to
other comrades, with whom we might disagree. It means a commitment to
robust debate, but to do so in ways that build, confidently, the unity of our
Party, our alliance, and our broad movement. As communists we commit
ourselves to being in the front-line of that struggle.
In 1952, one of the giants of our communist movement, comrade Moses Kotane,
said that South Africa needs a peoples policy serving to fire the minds
and hearts of our people with that vision of a better South Africa which is in
our grasp. We have contributed, this weekend, to that ongoing task.
