28 May 2000
1. This conference has been a milestone in building the Party and in bringing us closer to our cherished goal, socialism. Building on the conference of last year we have proved that we can weld together a cohesive force of conscious cadres who are dedicate d building the ANC, COSATU and this Party. Through the Tri-Partite Alliance we will build a better life for all. The Party will not be found wanting in this respect and will deal with any of its cadres that undermine this Alliance or the program of the Par ty.
2. The commissions have come up with many practical strategic measures for the party to implement. If there is one area where we need to improve comrades, it is on implementation. This is not because the media has been correct in its attack on the Party, s uggesting we are weaker than ever before. On the contrary, this Party has never been bigger, stronger or closer to its objective of socialism. We must distinguish between the poverty of our enemies and objective and subjective weaknesses of the SACP.
3. We have a historic mission to build a society in which all people are free from oppression and exploitation. It is only through building socialism and ultimately communism that such a society will emerge. We cannot build socialism by pretending we have done our work, or that there is no work left to do. We will build socialism through hard work and honesty. Honesty with the masses and honesty with ourselves.
4. The focus on the cadre in this conference has not been accidental. The ANC is also grappling with this issue. The powers and privileges of political office, of access to state resources, of benefiting from the improved relationship between capital in ou r country and the liberation movement as a whole have brought both threats and opportunities for the Party and its Alliance partners. Fortunately we are a movement with a history of courageously addressing issues which affect us and the nation as a whole. The Party believes that its cadres must and will play a key role in developing the new person that our country needs. Such a person must be against corruption, dedicated to serving the people of this country selflessly and must be an enlightened and progre ssive patriot. Is such a person not what our Party cadres are mostly made of? We believe that this is so.
5. Our focus on the economy is also not for any coincidental reason. As we have said, the economy is the key to liberating the people of this country. We have won political power through the ANC. The key challenge is to transform this economy to eradicate poverty. There is no other way to do this but through the redistribution of wealth to the masses of our people. This will not happen in some crude manner; such as through land invasions, but through a program of measures that will ensure we eradicate pover ty. We have valuable suggestions to make in this regard that the commissions have come up with. Central to these suggestions is for us as a country to not bow down to the dictate of disinterested capital that suggests more neo-liberalism is what we need. W hat we need is more political assertiveness to achieve the objectives of our revolution. We are unapologetic about our increasing confidence as a Party. We are confident because our people are poor, hungry, homeless, suffering from curable illnesses. We ar e also confident because the working class itself is growing confident. We say we shall not allow neo-liberalism to be imposed on the working class. Enough is enough. The working class is deliberately going to firmly contest the direction of the transition in particular to roll back the market as the determinant of the fate of our people.
6. Similarly, our focus on transforming the public service and restructuring the public enterprises and state assets that the people currently own is not coincidental. As a Party we are convinced, more than ever before after the last six years of democracy in our country, that the national democratic state must lead in building the economy and transforming our society. Capital may be aggressive because it has run amok I our land, whether foreign or domestic. The recent COSATU action proves that the people o f this country do not want capitalism and all that goes with it. These workers showed as they have in the past, that they are prepared to sacrifice for the collective future of our country and people as a whole. They also showed that they are confident to deal with this reality, including getting rid of capitalism from our land once and for all.
7. Local government elections are upon us. This important step in the consolidation of our democracy is a key area where our cadres will focus their efforts this year. We are convinced that the ANC will win an overwhelming victory in these elections and th e SACP will marshal all its resources to ensure that this is so. There is no other organisation that can lead this country in this period of our history. But the Alliance is what makes the ANC strong. We must therefor make efforts to ensure that the Allian ce is strengthened and that the working class assert their power to keep the Alliance biased towards the poor and the marginalised in our society.
8. None of these objectives, transforming the economy, building the national democratic state, winning local government elections, ridding our country of corruption can be achieved without this vanguard party of the working class, the SACP. As comrade Zuma reminded us on Friday, we can expect no privilege, no special dispensation, and no forgiveness for our failures as communists. We do not comrades. That is why we are focussing our efforts to build this party. Our desire to build this party has made us rev isit the words of Lenin, “better few but better”. Our members are on notice. Carry out your tasks and report back to this Party, the Party to which you are accountable or face the consequence of being left behind by history, where you will be remembered, i f you are remembered at all, as a cadre who failed the revolution. Such people will not be looked upon kindly by the masses.