Political Report by the sacp general secretary Blade Nzimande

Build A Working Class-led Momentum for Socio-Economic Transformation: With and For the Workers and the Poor

Political Report of the Central Committee to the 11th Congress

Cde National Chairperson,
Members of the Central Committee, allies, international guests,
Members of the diplomatic corps, special guests and

Comrade delegates

We are gathered for the 11th Congress of the South African Communist Party under the banner "With and For… the Workers and the Poor". This 11th Congress, the largest ever of our great and glorious Party, is a fitting tribute to the great and dedicated communist revolutionaries who built and shaped our Party over the last 80 years. The tribute that this Congress has just paid to these revolutionaries is living proof that in our country the vision of socialism is not only alive and well but is inherited from generations of communists whose record of struggle and sacrifice is unequalled in our country’s history.

Next year we will be commemorating the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Cde Chris Hani. We would like to reiterate that the murderers of our late General Secretary must remain where they are, in maximum-security imprisonment. During their boastful, arrogant TRC amnesty applications, they made it very clear that they were not prepared to tell the truth, and that they were not in the least remorseful. Let them never forget that it was our democratic dispensation that, ironically, rescued them from the gallows to which they had been sentenced in 1993. These murderers continue to represent a menace to our new democratic dispensation, and any pardon or amnesty would be an affront to our humane but principled democracy.

As part of this 10th anniversary commemoration, we are proposing to this Congress that 2003 be declared "The year of communist martyrs and heroes". We would urge our provinces to ensure that we honour all our fallen communist heroes at all levels, to remind the country of the contribution and sacrifices that communists have made to our liberation. This would also be an opportunity for us to say we shall forever treasure their memories and remain indebted to the example they set.

The importance of being communists

Cde National Chairperson and comrade delegates, while we are gathered in our Party’s Congress, our approach to our deliberations should be from the standpoint of being communists. This might sound obvious. However, because we find ourselves doing work in various formations and institutions, we sometimes approach the challenge of being communist from the standpoint of our other deployments. This Congress is an occasion to approach matters from the other way round.

Let’s remind ourselves of four very basic things:

One: Ours is a struggle for socialism – a society in which political power and the predominant means of production are in the hands of the workers and the poor.

Two: The struggle for this objective is, fundamentally, a CLASS struggle. In the words of the Communist Manifesto (words which we have not forgotten), "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

Three: These struggles are, fundamentally, struggles over the control and ownership of PROPERTY. "… Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time" (The Communist Manifesto).

Four: But we are also South African communists, active here on our continent, Africa. In our theory, our strategy and our practice we continue to be fundamentally guided by the famous Cradock Letter written in February 1934 to the Central Committee by our former General Secretary, that great communist hero, Moses Kotane. "The Party", he wrote, "must become more Africanised, pay special attention to South Africa, study the conditions in this country and concretise the demands of the toiling masses from first hand experience. We must speak the language of the masses and must know their demands. Thus while it must not lose its international allegiance, the Party must be ‘Bolshevised’ – become South African not only theoretically but in reality".

Over the past 81 years, we have built such a Party. We have confounded our enemies, our critics, even some of our friends and former members. Today, the SACP, with its socialist objectives, its Marxist analysis, its activism and, above all, its rootedness in South Africa, exerts more influence than at any other time in its history.

The global situation

At the beginning of the first major wave of global capitalist expansion in the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels captured the thoroughly dialectical character of this process. On the one hand, the intensive and extensive development of modern industry, communications and technology represented, potentially at least, revolutionary advances of human civilisation. These advances created the material basis for a new (and, for the first time, a world-wide) human solidarity. It was possible to say, as it had never been before – "Workers of the world unite…!"

But these advances were driven by modern barbarism, by a private profit-seeking system that dispossessed millions as it progressed, that enriched a few and impoverished the majority, that created extremes of wealth and poverty. It was, Marx and Engels wrote, a system that would consume itself in its own contradictions – "Workers of the world unite [because] you have nothing to lose but your chains!"

Written just over one hundred and fifty years ago, this analysis has stood the test of time. What today is called "globalisation" is, in fact, the continuation, at a higher stage, of this fundamentally dialectical reality.

Over the past 30 years, we have experienced unprecedented levels of technological transformation that have impacted the entire globe. Much of this change is (potentially at least) an advance for human civilisation. Satellite communications, e-mail and the Internet have established an infrastructure that creates the basis for instantaneous global information and communication for a new global solidarity. But it has been driven by a particularly virulent and crisis-ridden strain of capitalist barbarism. The results are increasingly obvious, even to the most obdurate defenders of capitalism:

In the face of these crises, it is obvious that the dominant capitalist governments and multi-lateral international institutions are analytically, strategically and morally bankrupt.

The Bush Administration has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol. The same administration effectively snubbed the World Conference Against Racism held in Durban last year. In the midst of imposed conditionalities on developing countries, forcing us to liberalise our economies, the US has this year increased by billions of dollars its subsidy to US agriculture. While macro-economic fiscal austerity is imposed on us, the US has a debt of $2.2 trillion – almost as much as the entire debt of developing countries put together.

At our 9th SACP Congress, in April 1995, we stated that both the rapid technological advances and the deepening inequalities in our world, associated with "globalisation", were, in fact, driven by a systemic crisis of production and falling profitability in the heartlands of developed capitalism. Apart from SACP members and supporters, no one in South Africa really noticed.

At our 10th SACP Congress, in July 1998, we again analysed "globalisation" in these terms. The so-called "Russian melt-down", and "Asian contagion" were, at the time, topical realities, so a few more commentators in South Africa bothered to notice what we were saying. Still, the dominant consensus in our country was that these were largely "regional" crises, specific "market failures", and the result of peculiar (perhaps even cultural) weaknesses in these zones – crony capitalism, and the like.

But now, as we meet in 2002, the truth is less easily evaded. Crony capitalism turns out to be international "standard practice" – Enron and their crony accountants, Anderson, Tyco, Global Crossing, Qwest Communications, WorldCom, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Xerox, the list goes on and on. What we see is the emergence of new, modern global robber barons of neo-liberal capitalism!

As in the past, one menacing response to these crises, has been increased military expenditure in the US, and a growing and dangerous propensity towards aggressive unilateralism. The US has increased its military budget during this year to $396 billion, a whopping expenditure of more than $1 billion a day. War, especially a high-tech war, is a destructive means of propping up declining profits. The demonisation of foreign countries, leaders, cultures, and religions is a demagogic attempt to unify and distract disgruntled domestic electorates. The fundamentalism of neo-liberalism, of US domination is counter-posed to other fundamentalisms. Deplorable acts of terrorism are used to justify counter-terrorism acts like the bombing of civilians in Afghanistan. The so-called "war on terrorism" becomes state sponsored, hi-tech, terrorism in Colombia, in Palestine. In the South we get lectures on "good governance" and "democracy", while the US conspires to overthrow popularly elected Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, and while the US and its allies plan externally imposed "regime changes" in Iraq, in Zimbabwe. In the Palestine Authority, the Palestinian people are instructed to go to the polls and vote for a candidate of President George Bush’s choice.

Imperialist-driven globalisation is incapable of resolving its own systemic contradictions. Each response – enforced liberalisation in the South and protectionism in the North; rampant destruction of the environment; militarisation and unilateral interventions; financial speculation gone mad; the crooking of the books – is designed to prop up falling profits, but only deepens the systemic crisis. There is NO surpassing this crisis within the horizons of the capitalist system. And make no mistake, the crisis IS life threatening, it is a crisis of human civilisation. The system has to be surpassed. More and more, around the world, millions of people are coming to the same general conclusion.

However, to talk, as we must, of a systemic crisis of global capitalism, does not mean that capitalism is about to collapse. The surpassing of global capitalism requires organisation, mobilisation, and unifying strategies. There is a long way to go.

Since our last Congress we have seen significant mass challenges to the current imperialist globalisation. Some of these challenges have been expressed in the Seattle mass demonstrations, in Prague and Genoa and in the convening of the alternative World Social Forum. The participants in these and many other initiatives around the world are drawn from a diversity of backgrounds and ideological traditions. The strength (and potential weakness) of these mass anti-globalisation movements is precisely their pluralism and diversity.

We must certainly not under-rate the importance of these and other phenomena. These mass struggles mark an end to the so-called "end of history"! The challenge for communist forces globally today is to interact with this diverse but popularly rooted anti-capitalist sentiment. We need to learn and listen; we need to appreciate the creativity with which a wide range of forces, sometimes single-issue campaigns, has mobilised. But we need also to engage with these diverse forces with our own analyses of the crisis, and our own strategic vision of a struggle for socialism as the only sustainable direction to take humanity out of the current tragic impasse.

This Congress, with the presence of our international delegates and comrades, needs to engage this particular challenge quite closely.

It is within the above context and from this thoroughly internationalist working class perspective that we should engage the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The SACP welcomes the formation of the African Union to replace the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate President Thabo Mbeki on being the founding chair of the AU.

We are confident that the AU will build on the liberation credentials of the OAU, and maintain a stance against imperialism and neo-colonialism. The big task of the AU should be to focus the attention of the continent on building people-centred and people-driven democracies, fighting poverty, promoting gender equality, and rebuilding the African economies to serve its people and challenge the imperialist economic stranglehold on our continent.

We call on the AU to focus its urgent attention on the unfinished business of building democracy on the continent, particularly the Swaziland and Saharawi situations. As the SACP, we are deeply concerned that the AU is being launched without any significant progress in resolving these two questions in particular.

The SACP is concerned that Swaziland has been accepted to the AU, without a firm commitment from the rulers of that country to a time-table of democratising Swaziland. We urge the AU to use its prestige and clout to put pressure on the Swazi government to lift the ban on political parties, release the President of PUDEMO, Cde Mario Masuku, allow the unconditional return of exiles, and create conditions for free and fair elections based on the aspirations of the majority of the Swazi people.

We also call upon the AU to move speedily towards the settlement of the Saharawi question. Decolonisation on our continent is incomplete without the national self-determination of the Saharawi people. We are of the view that it is time our country establishes full diplomatic relations with the Saharawi Republic.

One of the big challenges for our party is that of linking up with other progressive forces on the African continent, to engage the realities on the continent and the challenge of development. The SACP supports the concept of NEPAD as an important initiative to reverse underdevelopment and poverty. But we reject the notion that the development of the African continent should be traded off for notions of good governance that are premised on imperialist, neo-liberal conceptions and conditionalities similar to those of the failed and disastrous structural adjustment programmes forced on our continent.

It is our considered view that good governance must also characterise global politics and the economy. The imperialist designs of protectionism, manipulation of debt for the benefit of developed countries, the imposed conditionalities by the two biggest global mashonisas, the IMF and World Bank, do not represent good governance at all; instead, it is misgovernance in the interests of the rich.

Critical to the success of NEPAD is mass popular involvement in order to ensure that the powerful countries and their allies do not transform it into a new form of structural adjustment programme. Such popular participation must be premised on mass mobilisation, in alliance with progressive forces globally, to focus on key issues, eg. debt cancellation, people-centred and popular governance as the basis of democracy and building strong African states, access for African goods to markets in the North, and an end to conditionalities that further subjugate the continent to perpetual poverty. Of central importance is the struggle to reclaim nation-states as sites for addressing the socio-economic needs of their populations.

Our Draft Programme directs Congress to reflect on the AU and NEPAD quite extensively in order to ensure that our perspectives on imperialism and international working class solidarity consistently inform our approach to these.

The domestic political situation

Let us remind ourselves that the 11th Congress is the first SACP Congress in the new century and millennium. It is a Congress that requires that we reflect, albeit briefly, on the 1990s – South Africa’s decade of a transition to democracy – against the backdrop of almost a century of struggle for national liberation and socialism as well as within the context of a very eventful last decade of this century. Our Draft Programme devotes itself extensively to the domestic situation, and therefore for the purposes of this political report, I will touch briefly on a few key issues to set the context for discussing this matter as outlined in the programme.

The 1990s can truly be regarded as a decade in which South Africa transitioned to democracy. For the SACP, which had been illegal for 40 years – making it the longest-standing illegal organisation ever in the history of our revolution – the unbanning provided an opportunity to rebuild its legal structures inside the country, and to reconnect with its mass working class base directly and legally.

The legalisation of our organisations also coincided with the extension of counter-revolutionary warfare by the apartheid regime against our organisations and our people. One important lesson from the period 1990 to 1994 was the manner in which the movement managed to effectively combine three key elements of struggle in the new situation. The first element is extensive internal and public debate about our transition; our Party was indeed at the cutting edge of these debates. The second key element was that all these debates and engagement during this period were underpinned by sustained mass mobilisation and struggles. Thirdly, all these struggles and debates cohered around the development of the RDP – one of the most extensive policy discussions within the ranks of our movement.

Perhaps most importantly during this period, we defeated a particular type of transition that some global and domestic forces wanted to impose on South Africa - a combination of a centrist, low intensity democracy marginalising both the right and the left. This was defeated principally because the ANC and its left allies managed to mobilise as a single force, won the election and marginalised both the right and the ultra-right, whilst keeping the left-bloc of forces intact to drive the transformation process in the post-1994 period.

The national liberation movement managed to unite the widest possible classes and strata of society committed to the most thorough democratic transformation of South African society. In addition, the liberation movement managed to destroy virtually all of those forces and parasitic strata that were dependent on the Bantustan regimes which the apartheid regime had sought to mobilise against the national liberation movement. The only former Bantustan political force that survived the democratic breakthrough was the IFP in KwaZulu-Natal, through its capture of the KwaZulu-Natal government, but not without the significant presence of the liberation movement in that province. The IFP’s power base in KwaZulu-Natal is slowly shrinking as democracy takes its roots.

The only real relic of the past apartheid regime and political order that threatened to survive in its old form was the National Party in the Western Cape, through its ability to mobilise the minority fears of the coloured community. It was these fears and reality that Tony Leon’s Democratic Party sought to exploit in 1999 to unite all the minorities, Indian, coloured and white, against the new democratic government. The DP’s alliance with the NNP under the rubric of the DA sought, more than anything else, to mobilise ethnic and racial minority fears in order to undermine the democratic government, thus securing the past privileges of all the minorities, particularly the white population. The reality of the contradictory co-existence of genuine coloured working class concerns, and the white orientation of the DP, saw the floundering of the DA and the failure of the Tony Leon project, thus providing a huge opportunity to begin to unite all the previously oppressed behind the democratisation of South Africa, and for the first time laying a sound basis for winning a wider section of the white population behind a democratic, united and non-racial South Africa. The dissolution of the DP/NNP Alliance marks an important defeat of another project and model of a transition - to forge a unity of a bloc of forces opposed to our democracy under the banner of protecting minority interests.

The 1990s were also characterised by major gains on the gender front. Hugely progressive gender machinery was set up, thus making the imperative of gender equality at least a constitutional reality. Subsequent legislation built on these achievements with the setting up of the Commission on Gender Equality, the Offices of the Status of Women, a Parliamentary committee on improving the quality of life of women by monitoring the gender content of all legislation and government policies. The one weakness in this regard was the failure to build a sustainable women’s movement, thus slowing down the capacity to translate these constitutional and legislative realities into a substantive impact on the lives of ordinary women. Perhaps the challenge now is whether we should rather seek to build a women’s movement through our campaigns on, for instance, the building of co-ops, the financial sector campaign, CPFs, school governing bodies, etc. It is mainly women who actively participate in school governing bodies and parents meetings. Shouldn’t we therefore identify this as an important arena to mobilise women, and then seek to harmonise these issues and forms of organisation into a momentum towards a woman’s movement?

Since our last Congress, there have been further major developments on the broader political front in favour of the NDR-bloc of forces. In 1999, the ANC increased its electoral majority from 62,5% to just under two thirds. In the 2000 local government elections – the first truly non-racial and democratic local elections – the ANC won 5 of the 6 metropolitan councils, and controls more than 80% of the municipalities in the country. These elections were won on progressive manifestos, including a commitment to provision of free basic services for the poor, an indigent policy, and an assertion that the state should be the preferred provider of social services.

However, as the movement consolidates political power, there is simultaneously a looming danger of bureaucratisation, opportunism and careerism as thousands of cadres move into key positions in government and the economy broadly. There is also the related danger of creeping demobilisation of many structures of the democratic movement, and not least the weakening of the very structures of the liberation movement on the ground.

Unless we embark on programmes to rebuild the mass movement and strengthen all the structures of the liberation movement, there is a danger of slowing down the transformation process. The ANC has adopted the all-important Letsema campaign to ensure that the NDR is people-driven. The SACP has adopted the theme of reviving communist activism and a communist cadre, and COSATU has declared 2002 as the year of the member. SANCO held its Congress and has embarked on a programme of refocusing the organisation through the rebuilding of its locally based structures.

Perhaps the bigger threat to our revolution at this point in time is the global neo-liberal agenda, in a context where the national, class and gender legacies of apartheid still remain dominant. Our principal enemy therefore remains imperialism, and its domestic articulation through neo-liberal restructuring of the workplace and pressure on our state to adopt these policies. This reality has posed the economic and class question even more sharply than during any other stage in our revolution.

Since 1998, we have consistently warned that the accumulation regime underway is skewed in favour of the capitalist classes and threatens to undermine the gains made by the working class since 1994. We have argued that this accumulation regime is neither desirable nor inevitable. One of the critical challenges in this regard is the need to unite the democratic bloc forces through a common growth and development strategy and to face both global and domestic capital with a united voice and approach. It is against the background of the interrelationship between global and domestic challenges that we should approach the tasks of this Congress.

The political objectives and tasks of the 11th Congress

The key strategic objective of the SACP over the next five to ten years is to build a mass-based momentum for socio-economic transformation that overcomes poverty, deep-seated inequality and systemic underdevelopment, launching our society onto a new path of growth and development. This mass-based momentum must be ANC-led, and working class-driven. To this end, we need to mobilise the active participation of the overwhelming majority of our people, working together with our allies, with government at all levels, and the mass movement. As an active formation in this struggle, the SACP will seek to advance, deepen and defend the NDR and, at the same time, build momentum towards, capacity for, and elements of socialism.

As an ANC-led alliance, we have attained significant and substantive elements of political power, but dominant economic power still remains with the same class forces as under apartheid. Unless we are able to radically transform the socio-economic terrain, and unless we do this in the coming decade by changing the persisting patterns of skewed accumulation (and dis-accumulation), the objectives of the NDR will be in danger. We therefore need an intensive and extensive focus on socio-economic transformation, through sustained mobilisation of our people and the deployment of state power. Through a mobilised and politically conscious working class, we need to engage all sites of economic power – the workplace, public and private capital, the state, the banks, our stokvels, burial societies, co-operatives, street vendors and spaza shops.

It was through the lessons from the financial sector campaign, amongst other things, that we have advanced the concept and slogan of building a people’s economy. Building a working class-driven momentum for socio-economic transformation should be the basis from which we drive a broader growth and development strategy. This momentum should aim primarily at overcoming and transforming the stubborn, skewed accumulation (and dis-accumulation) regime that still characterises our society. We need a growth and development process driven by and benefiting the overwhelming majority of our society – workers exploited by capitalism, a black majority still suffering the legacy of race domination, and millions of women oppressed by persisting patriarchal relations of power.

This entry-point of a working class-driven momentum for socio-economic transformation is not separate from, but is an essential driver of, nation building and democracy in our country. It is a practical programme to confront the legacy of racism and gender inequality in our society. It is a programme based on the understanding that the task of transforming our country should, at its core, be driven through a class struggle, with and for the workers and the poor.

The FOUR key pillars of the programme of action to achieve these strategic objectives derive from, and build on, current and recent working class-led campaigns:

  1. A growth and development strategy

  1. Local governance transformation

  1. Fighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic

  1. International solidarity

  • We must deepen relations with communist, socialist and other left progressive forces globally.

  • We must focus particularly on linking up with progressive forces and issues on the African continent.

  • Within the above context, we must engage with NEPAD.

The SEVEN main implementation strategies and approaches through which we should attain the above are the following:

  1. The continued relevance of socialist ideology, strategy and organisation

Perhaps the most important lesson over the last four years and, indeed, over the twelve years since our unbanning, concerns the relevance and absolute necessity of socialist theory, ideas and organisation as critical components of deepening and consolidating the NDR itself. This is underlined, firstly, by the current inability of neo-liberalism to deliver on its promises. Neo-liberalism, in its most triumphant phase immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, projected itself as the only idea in town, and promised a better life through intensification of capitalist accumulation. The better life has not happened; instead, we have seen deepening economic crises in many parts of the developing world, and deepening inequalities between and within countries.

In our own country, the accumulation regime developing over the last few years has been accompanied by massive job losses and worsening levels of poverty in many parts of our country. The current reality of escalating food prices, directly linked to the wholesale liberalisation of agricultural commodities, is but one graphic illustration of the failure of capitalism to address the needs of the overwhelming majority of our people. A consistently socialist and working class approach is fundamental to tackling poverty and to ensuring that we do not reproduce the very inequalities we seek to overcome.

We have also emphasised, as the SACP, that seeking to transform our society without grappling with and sufficiently analysing the capitalist environment in which we find ourselves is likely to frustrate the realisation of the goals of the NDR itself. We need to reaffirm these perspectives at this Congress.

Indeed we have, as an ANC-led movement, made major advances on the socio-economic front, since our 1994 democratic breakthrough. We have provided electricity, clean drinking water, houses, and primary health care facilities to millions of our people for the first time ever in their lives. We have also seen the passing of very progressive legislation on many fronts, including the opening of our institutions of learning to all, as well as progressive labour market legislation and transformation. These gains are very important to our people, and to the working class in particular.

However, one very clear lesson since 1994 is that the most significant socio-economic progress has been made in those areas where the state and/or parastatals have played a leading role, either in direct delivery of services, or in strategically leveraging resources. For instance, there is the provision of electricity to the poor and working people through Eskom, the provision of water through the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and through municipalities, the building and running of clinics by government health departments, etc. In all of these cases, we have been able to use public ownership to direct resources to those who most need them, against the grain of the capitalist market.

In instances where we have relied more on private sector financing, we have found the private sector to be unreliable, or unwilling to play an effective developmental role – this applies to low-cost housing, and it applies to the development of the SMME sector. In both cases, reliance on private sector financial institutions has resulted in serious disappointment.

Whether you are a socialist or not, a key lesson we should all have learned over the past eight years, is that the democratic state and the parastatal sector are critical for driving development as an integral component of deepening the NDR. At the beginning of 2002, the ANC launched the Year of the Volunteer, correctly campaigning to foster a spirit of volunteerism and the collective tackling of problems. The campaign underlines the centrality of nurturing values that are different from individualistic and competitive capitalist values if we are to have any hope of transforming our country. Likewise, in the view of the SACP, the important moral regeneration campaign launched by Deputy President Jacob Zuma on behalf of government, can only really become a reality if it is informed by what are, in effect, socialist values of solidarity, collectivism, commitment to community and the struggle for the eradication of poverty and gross inequality.

All this underlines the relevance of our programmatic slogan, "Socialism is the future, build it now", not only for building socialism, but also to advance, deepen and defend the NDR itself. As our Draft Programme argues, the question of a socialist strategy cannot be postponed until after the attainment of the objectives of the NDR - it is a precondition for consolidating the NDR itself.

  1. Democratic governance for transformation

A defining feature of the post-1994 period in South Africa is that the liberation movement is in power as government. As the SACP we are placed in a unique, but complex, situation vis-à-vis governance. By virtue of being part of the broad liberation movement and in an alliance with the ANC as the governing party, we are also part of government. But at the same time we are a distinct Party, and we are not directly leading government.

There is no doubt that democratic governance for transformation is a key challenge facing our revolution. We need to prioritise this area in accordance with its importance as a critical arena for advancing, deepening and defending the NDR, as well as for building momentum towards, capacity for and elements of socialism. Indeed, thousands of communists are playing an important role in government as well as in other popular and mass formations that are crucial for carrying forward transformation in the sphere of governance.

Governance is more than just government, it incorporates the role of our people and their formations in the process of governing; hence, our programme’s focus on building people’s power. Democratic governance should be premised on consolidation of state power by the democratic forces and the simultaneous mobilisation of our people to drive democratic governance. As we said at the Alliance summit, we need to be on both sides of the street in deepening the NDR – active in the democratic exercise of state power and active in building people’s power, with working class mobilisation as the anchor of that popular power.

The Central Committee proposes that the SACP should make local governance a centre of gravity for our programme. Our focus on this sphere does not mean retreating from the national sphere, but our national impact and effectiveness will often best be felt if we build party strength at local level.

Focus on the local governance level will also help us to concentrate much more systematically on the building of co-operatives, focus on building rural motive forces through the development and implementation of local integrated development plans (IDPs), with a particular focus on mobilising women. One of our biggest challenges is how to contribute towards the development of IDPs that are guided by our developmental perspectives of local economic development, industrial policies, mobilisation of domestic resources, and building people’s power. This will also assist us in focusing our energies on strengthening the branch and district structures of our Party. It is through such a focus that we can also ensure the growth and rootedness of the Party amongst the mass of our people, with and for the workers and the poor.

It is in the sphere of governance generally that some of the tensions of the recent period within our Party and Alliance have arisen. This Congress will have to pay careful attention to the challenges that have emerged, and we need to debate frankly this issue as part of strengthening our role in governance as well as ensuring effective accountability of communists to the Party. Clearer guidelines will have to be developed by this Congress. We fully accept that communists in government positions (and indeed in all other, non-Party progressive institutions) must loyally carry out the mandates of those structures in which they serve. But what is the meaning of SACP membership if, in some cases, it seemingly has no bearing whatsoever on the conduct of Communists in other formations? The Draft Programme before this Congress also raises these and related questions for further elaboration and for reaching clearer decisions.

  1. Building the political and organisational capacity of the working class as the main motive force of the revolution

A major lesson over the last four years has been the need to constantly mobilise and strengthen the political capacity of the working class as the engine of the struggle to deepen and consolidate the national democratic revolution. Working class struggles around jobs, poverty eradication, the transformation of the financial sector, and defending and building a strong public sector have produced some major gains from which we can learn important lessons for the struggles that lie ahead.

In working class struggles there will be short-term and longer-term objectives. The challenge of the SACP is to properly understand both the distinction and relationship between the short- and long-term class objectives. The Party does not mechanically support any trade union struggle, simply because it is waged by workers. However, to dismiss short-term working class and trade union struggles as inevitably "infantile" or "sectarian" is tantamount to abandoning the short-term interests of the working class for some distant, abstract "longer-term" goals, seemingly unconnected to current struggles. We are sometimes goaded as the Party that in order to be truly a vanguard of the working class, we must turn our back on short-term class struggles, around jobs for instance, and fix our gaze on the long term, as if socialism will land like a Boeing 747, with the SACP as the certified pilot, having, until then, cruised high above the daily struggles of working people. Yes, we must guard against "short-termism", taking up issues in anger or frustration without any sense of strategy. But taking up short-term working class struggles with a sense of strategic purpose is a very different matter. We need to ensure that the manner in which we take up the immediate struggles of the working class does not compromise, but rather builds towards, our longer-term goals. This is also the essence of our programmatic slogan of building momentum towards, capacity for, and elements of socialism now.

  1. Placing transformation of gender relations and women’s emancipation at the centre of our programme

As outlined in our Draft Programme document, we need to ensure that our programmes, activities and campaigns are engendered, that we confront the challenge of elaborating a Marxist-Leninist feminism based on our own conditions and experiences. The discussions at Congress themselves must be permeated by this focus, and we must ensure an effective integration of the gender question.

We have, through our Draft Programme, directed Congress to have extensive discussions on the question of gender by focusing on patriarchal oppression. We have correctly asserted that national oppression, class exploitation and patriarchal domination are deeply entwined within the fabric of our society. Two interrelated challenges arise out of this. The first one is that of a further theoretical elaboration of the centrality of overcoming patriarchal domination for our revolution. Secondly, there is the need to take this forward through a more practical and programmatic focus, including, amongst other things:

  • Consistent struggles for women empowerment, both inside our Party and in society in general. For example, in taking forward our financial sector campaign, we must raise the complex set of practices and regulations that reinforce patriarchy and gender inequalities.

  • Linking our struggles for meeting basic needs through socio-economic transformation with the question of relieving the burden of household (and unpaid) labour performed by women.

  • Deliberately spreading gender awareness and consciousness, ideologically and concretely through all of our campaigns, with a particular focus on transforming men’s consciousness and practices in regard to gender.

  • Focused political education and ideological development of both men and women, separately and in an integrated way, throughout all our cadre development work.

  1. Rural motive forces and the transformation of the South African countryside

Partly arising from political discussions in the provinces, the Central Committee has identified the question of a systematic Party focus on rural transformation as another key challenge for this Congress. Much as the Party has a significant presence in rural areas, we have not adequately specified what should be the "centre of gravity" of our activities in the rural areas.

From some of the debates in the provinces, three interrelated challenges emerge. In the first place, it is important that we properly understand and define the main content of the land and agrarian questions in South Africa in the contemporary period. Our 1999 Strategy Conference made an important initial attempt to focus the Party on this question.

More than 60% of the African population is to be found in the countryside. South Africa’s countryside can broadly be divided into two, in terms of its socio-economic composition and geographic location. The one part is that of white-owned medium and large farms, employing mainly African (but also large numbers of coloured) workers who are still subjected to some of the most ruthless and primitive forms of labour-tenancy. With the exception of farms and enterprises owned by big agro-business – where there have been some advances in organising workers into trade unions – workers on individually- or family-owned white small and medium size farms are generally not organised. These workers are still working under some of the worst forms of exploitation and face regular racist violence and abuse in many cases. They are difficult to reach for purposes of organisation, since access to these privately owned farms is nearly impossible. The key challenge is to intensify efforts to organise these workers into trade unions.

The other, more populated sectors of South Africa’s countryside, are the former Bantustans. It is in these areas where some of the worst poverty and destitution are to be found. Large percentages of our people in the former Bantustans are unemployed, under the control and patronage of chiefs and izinduna, and a system of patronage that makes them vulnerable to coercive manipulation. Chiefs control the land and there is hardly any land for sustainable livelihoods for the majority. In some cases, there are progressive chiefs – including those with a long positive association with the liberation movement - who are working together with communities to promote people-centred development, and in some cases our Party structures have developed positive and working relationship with these chiefs. A few chiefs are members of our Party.

In the former Bantustans, there are only three major sources of livelihood: remittances from the urban working class; social grants, mainly old-age pensions; and the unpaid labour of women. There is substantively no accumulation in these areas.

Therefore, the second challenge for the Party is to throw its weight behind struggles for access to land, perhaps for household-based farming initially, in order to ensure subsistence and alleviation of the worst forms of poverty. Producer co-operatives need to be built, in order to distribute whatever surplus might be generated through such a system. The countryside is definitely a fertile ground for building a strong co-operative movement around small-scale subsistence farming as a starting point.

The third challenge, which derives directly from the above two challenges, is that of deliberately seeking to build motive forces for rural transformation. As things stand, there is no consciously mobilised mass motive force with economic or political muscle capable of leading on the land and agrarian question. This is not an objective that will be achieved in the short-term, but it requires systematic and urgent attention by our Party and the liberation movement. Our Party structures in the rural areas will have to be seized with this challenge, and this Congress should guide our structures in this regard.

  1. Building the Alliance

It is the view of the CC and our Party that a cohesive and strong ANC-led Alliance still remains an absolutely central necessity for advancing, deepening and defending the NDR and for leading society in the current period. Therefore, adequate attention will have to be paid by this Congress to the Alliance. However, we need to confront the changed circumstances under which the Alliance is operating, and assess whether the manner in which the Alliance is structured is in line with the strategic tasks of the revolution at this point in time.

As our Draft Programme points out, it would be wrong to seek to operate as if we are not part of an alliance and a movement that is in government or as if we are some kind of unique oppositionist faction within the alliance, as the media continually goad us to become. At the same time, it would be wrong to simply ape to the past of how the SACP used to operate in the Alliance prior to 1990, and particularly prior to 1994, without at the same time locating our role within the current new situation and challenges. This would be unpardonable ahistoricism that plays directly into liquidationism, freezing the Party into some distant past completely unconnected with contemporary challenges. It is indeed a new situation that we need to approach in a creative and strategic way – seeking to deepen the NDR in the era of democratic governance whilst simultaneously struggling for capacity for socialism.

We held our 10th Congress in the wake of heightened differences within the Alliance over government’s macro-economic policy framework, GEAR. These tensions were played out at that very Congress, as illustrated by one of the harshest criticisms ever directed at our Party by the ANC leadership. Tempting as it was to engage in an ongoing polemic against GEAR, as the SACP, we deliberately chose to focus our attention and role in the Alliance on providing a way out of this stalemate, without at the same abandoning our critique of GEAR.

During all our engagements within the Alliance we patiently argued and proposed a need for the Alliance to shift its focus towards the micro-economy (including investment in infrastructure) through the mobilisation of domestic resources based on an integrated, coherent and state-driven industrial strategy. In many ways our financial sector campaign is one important concrete contribution towards the mobilisation of domestic resources through mass mobilisation and use of state power to direct these financial resources towards productive investment. We continued to table before most of the Alliance meetings the argument that our macro-economic policy should reflect our micro-economic and industrial strategies rather than the other way round. This we saw as the basis for resolving the differences over GEAR.

We did not limit attempts to find consensus in the Alliance through discussions, but also tried to mobilise the working class in particular, around, as pointed out above, the financial sector as well as supporting legitimate working class struggles around jobs, poverty eradication, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, building a strong public sector and against privatisation. Our participation in these campaigns also contributed immensely to shaping these struggles in ways that strengthened the hand of the working class against private capital, and locating them firmly within the overarching struggle for poverty eradication.

During the latter half of 2001, the Alliance experienced what was perhaps its most strenuous and conflictual period over the last few decades. This tension was brought to a head by the COSATU and SACP-supported, anti-privatisation strike of August 2001. As the SACP we had consistently warned for a few years before that the accumulation regime was based on turning around our economy on the altar of sacrifices made by the working class. We are pleased to report now that the series of bilaterals and alliance meetings, including the all-important Ekurhuleni declaration of April 2002, have taken us out of the dip, and set us on a positive path of finding a common approach.

Our patient and persistent arguments for, and engagement around, an industrial strategy, the mobilisation of domestic resources and the need to focus on the micro-economy, have made a major contribution towards these developments. We believe that the manner in which we handled the differences by focusing on areas around which we can agree was the correct approach.

If we are to take forward these positive developments in the Alliance and move towards consensus on a growth and development strategy, it is important for all of us to learn the appropriate lessons out of our Alliance experiences over the last four years:

  • That no economic policy or developmental trajectory can be pursued successfully without a buy-in from the main motive forces of the revolution, particularly the working class. This is even more so in South Africa where the organisational muscle of the organised working class still remains a critical factor in taking forward the national democratic revolution.

  • That a collective (Alliance) analysis of the balance of forces (domestically and globally) and their implications for the NDR is a critical component in taking forward that NDR. This is simply because there is no single corner in any of our Alliance components that possesses the sole wisdom on taking forward the NDR. Ours is a collective struggle that requires maximum unity and cohesion, including collective debates and taking collective responsibility for advancing and deepening the NDR.

  • That the mobilisation of the working class is a critical weight in tilting the balance of forces in favour of a progressive developmental agenda. Contrary to our detractors, the mobilisation of the working class does not inherently mean a mobilisation against government, nor should progressive forces be threatened by such mobilisation. Instead, the ongoing and constant mobilisation of the working class is an important weapon in creating space for a developing country to advance a developmental agenda beneficial to its people. We dare not at any stage demobilise the working class!

  • That as an Alliance we have made major qualitative and quantitative advances through unity in action based on a common programme of action. We have in the past defended the revolution against violent counter-revolution in the early 1990s, by jointly using our mass power; unity during the election campaigns; and acting together through mass campaigns around clearly defined programmes. This has been after extensive internal debate and consultations, as manifested, by amongst others, the ANC election manifestos and the RDP. The Alliance tends to falter in instances where there is no common programme of action. The Letsema campaign, the jobs and poverty campaign, the HIV/AIDS campaign, as well as the financial sector campaign, and the Ekurhuleni Summit resolutions provide just such a foundation for a programme of action for the Alliance in the period to come.

These constitute some of the key challenges facing the Alliance in the coming period. Of critical importance is the need to implement the Ekurhuleni programme of action, premised on an agreed upon growth and development strategy, which will also act as a basis for approaching the growth summit. This is the most immediate challenge that would dramatically improve relations within the Alliance and reposition it to lead society in the process of transformation.

  1. Attaining SACP financial sustainability

We cannot achieve any of our main strategic objectives unless we ensure sustainable funding for the Party. This means that we need to intensify the debit order campaign and embark on a number of creative fund-raising initiatives for the SACP. This is a fundamental political task facing our Party, and this Congress will have to discuss very practical campaigns and a programme to attain this objective. This is a crucial challenge for the survival of the SACP as an independent organisation.

Comrade National Chairperson and delegates, congresses are notorious for developing wish-lists as a programme. Let us use this Congress to break away from this habit. In developing our programme of action, we should focus on key strategic and programmatic areas, which are achievable and have a wider impact on the transformation of society as a whole. Let this guide all our work at this Congress. Setting realistic objectives and achieving them develops the confidence of the Party, our cadres and the working class so that we can build on these towards our objective of socialism.

On the unity of our Party

None of the above challenges can be realised without a strong and unified SACP. In whatever we do, we must nurture and foster the unity of the Party. In fact, one of the most important achievements of the SACP over the last four years has been the deepening of our unifying strategic perspectives, policy positions, and programmes of action. The holding of two strategy conferences since our last Congress have also contributed immensely to further deepening the ideological unity and cohesion in our Party.

The programmatic slogan of "Socialism is the future, Build it now" has been the bedrock of our unifying perspectives since the democratic breakthrough. From these we have unified the party around the need to build momentum towards, capacity for and elements of socialism in the current period. Since our last Congress we have also fostered the spirit of communist activism and active participation in the inner life of the Party. We have mounted very concrete campaigns and mobilised popular forces through, amongst other things, our Red October campaigns, our annual programme focus areas, as well as through convening workers’ and people’s assemblies, particularly during our 80th anniversary commemorations.

The main lessons from these is that unity can only be built on the basis of debating and agreeing on common ideological and strategic perspectives, which our programmatic slogan has provided. Unity can only be built through a coherent programme, which our 10th Congress party programme has provided, based on the theme of building people’s power, building socialism now. Our unity can only be based on concrete programmes of action and campaigns, which our campaigns on jobs, poverty eradication, building the political confidence of the working class, building a strong public sector, building an industrial policy, mobilising domestic resources, and launching financial sector campaigns have provided. Unity can also only be based on active participation in these programmes and unwavering commitment to the achievement of their goals.

Let us build unity, but on the basis of the ideological orientation, programmatic perspectives, unflinching implementation of party programmes of action and campaigns. Let us promote open and frank debates within the party, but within the context and practice of democratic centralism.

The challenge of building working class unity

None of the challenges and tasks outlined above can be attained without the unity of the working class. A fundamental task of the SACP in the current period is to unite all sections of the working class, employed, unemployed, casual and in the informal sector. We need to pay even more attention to uniting the working class across the ethic and racial divides. The fundamental precondition for such unity is the unity of the black working class itself.

An important measure to take forward the unity of the working class is to work towards our long-standing goal of "one country, one federation". We are calling upon all the major trade union formations in the country, particularly COSATU, to earnestly work towards starting unity talks. The restructuring of the working class underway in our country and globally calls for maximum unity of the trade union movement, as an important weapon to fight neo-liberalism and poverty. Without the unity of the various trade union formations, the very unity of the working class and its capacity to play a role as the main motive force of our revolution will be severely compromised. There is more that unites the working class than divides it.

We are also calling upon workers in the PAC, SOPA, AZAPO, NACTU and Fedhusa to join the South African Communist Party, and to work with the SACP, as the vanguard of South Africa’s working class, where appropriate. No matter what victories or gains organised workers can make, these shall forever be threatened if organised workers and the SACP do not work together. We are a Party of the working class and poor. At no other time has the slogan - "Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains" – been so relevant than at this period.

We would like to call upon white workers to join hands with their black brothers and sisters by joining the non-racial trade union movement. Again, there is more that binds the white and black working class in our country today. Capitalist exploitation, retrenchments and joblessness know no colours. To the Afrikaner working class in particular, we want to say your future, your language, your rights as workers lie in joining cause with unions like COSATU. We welcome the increasing togetherness of black and white workers in the various sectors of our economy that we have witnessed over the last few years.

It is very clear that as economic difficulties facing the working class as a whole begin to bite, the white and Afrikaner elite has for all intents and purposes abandoned the white Afrikaner working class. This elite will always seek political engagements that protect its own interests and leaves you, as white workers, in the cold winds of global capitalism. Parties like the DA and Freedom Front are leading you into a cul-de-sac, as their political direction will only serve to isolate white workers and leave them vulnerable. Your home is in COSATU or a new non-racial trade union federation which merges existing federations. And the political home of the working class is in the ANC and SACP.

No capitalist society can meet the needs of the workers. It is only a socialist society that will in the end truly liberate workers and the poor, irrespective of colour, language or creed. This Congress will have to seriously reflect on these tasks and come out with concrete programmes to begin this last but important leg of achieving working class unity as the foundation for a non-racial, non-sexist and egalitarian society.

Taking forward immediate campaigns for the working class and the poor

Rise in food prices

The SACP is very concerned about the rise in the basic prices of food in our country at the moment. This rise in food prices erodes workers’ earnings and threatens to worsen poverty in our country. As the SACP, we would like to reiterate our call for steps to be taken to cushion the workers and the poor from these price rises. For example, we call on government to seriously consider extending zero-rating of basic foodstuffs on which our people survive. However, the most important task in this regard is mass mobilisation to ensure that the benefits of zero-rating do indeed reach the intended beneficiaries – the workers and the poor.

Social grants and a comprehensive social security programme

We have identified the establishment of a comprehensive social security programme as a key component of a growth and development strategy. As the SACP, we reject neo-liberal notions of projecting a comprehensive social security programme and a basic income grant as wasteful expenditure, particularly in the light of poverty in our country. It is for this reason that we welcome the report of the Taylor Committee recommending to government to work towards a comprehensive social security programme, with an initial focus to extend the Child Support Grant to older ages. As the SACP, we support the call for an intensive exploration of the feasibility of providing a Basic Income Grant.

The SACP also welcomes the call by the Minister of Social Development for a campaign to be started to register deserving people for social grants. We would like to propose to this Congress that the SACP, working with our allies and other mass formations, throws its weight fully behind this campaign. This will go a long way towards cushioning our people from some of the worst forms of poverty.

It is well worth considering that we start with this campaign immediately after our Congress, and work towards a Red October 2002 campaign that focuses on registering deserving social grantees. As the SACP, in line with the Letsema campaign, we call on all our professionals, particularly teachers, nurses and doctors to assist in their spare time to help in the identification of such potential social grantees. Let us also use our schools and churches to have special weekends to register deserving grantees.

We use this opportunity, in the true spirit of Batho-Pele, to call on our civil servants to expose all those corrupt elements amongst them who steal social grants from old-age pensioners, the disabled and child grantees. We must also put pressure on the banks to allow people who are receiving state grants to open bank accounts and pay reduced bank charges. In this way, we will continue to link the issue of state grants to our financial sector campaign.

Taking forward the financial sector campaign

Our financial sector campaign is one of the most successful SACP-led campaigns since our unbanning in 1990. It is a campaign that has truly captured the imagination of our people and talks directly to the struggles against poverty and for sustainable livelihoods. This is in essence a campaign for the socialisation of the financial sector – an important momentum towards building elements of, and capacity for, socialism. We must, at this Congress, congratulate all our Party cadres for the role they have played in driving this campaign, through marches, demonstrations, pickets and engaging with our population. Our Red October 2000 campaign, through which we launched this campaign, saw marches, pickets and demonstrations throughout the country. More than 40 000 people were attracted to our famous Red Saturday!

We have achieved many more things through this campaign than we sometimes realise. The most important political achievement is that we laid the seeds of political consciousness for the desirability of building a socialised financial sector in our country. We have engaged with stokvels, burial societies, co-operatives, savings movements and street vendors – activities that before our campaign were partially hidden or disconnected from the broader political and economic struggles for transformation.

Through the financial sector campaign we have also reached out to other class forces and provided leadership in this regard. For instance, we have established important contacts with the SMME sector, black professionals and black business as they are fundamentally affected by the racial and discriminatory nature of the financial sector. This has laid a basis for very fruitful meetings with the black business council, and has identified a few areas of common interest even beyond the financial sector. Again, what is instructive here is that our relationship to other class forces beyond the working class is through concrete campaigns and actions – an important factor in building the influence of the Party in broader society.

We have made very significant membership gains through our financial sector campaign. For instance, the single biggest growth of Party membership (about 4000 new party members) since 1998 was between October 2000 and 2001, the period of our launch and intensification of the financial sector campaign.

The financial sector campaign has been an important test for the SACP on its capacity to mobilise its own constituency and the broader mass of our people around issues fundamental to the transformation of our society.

Since we launched the financial sector campaign we have also seen the passing of the Homeloans and Mortgages Disclosure Act, 2001 – forcing the banks to disclose their lending patterns on the homeloan front. We further welcome the publication of the Community Reinvestment Bill aimed at, amongst other things, outlawing redlining and forcing the banks to lend in low-cost housing. We would, however, like to see this bill being strengthened to ensure that redlining becomes completely illegal. In addition, sooner rather than later, legislation must covers lending patterns of banks beyond just housing, to include lending to SMMEs, including co-operatives.

Lastly, but not least, though the financial sector summit that we called for has not been held, there are ongoing negotiations at NEDLAC around the demands in our campaign. We are concerned that business has been reluctant to ensure that this summit takes place as soon as possible. But what we need to say is that we are now poised to win some of the critical demands of our campaign and the Summit is set for August this year. We will not tolerate any further postponement of this summit, and we are definitely going to intensify our actions. We shall not abandon this campaign until all our demands our met.

A bigger challenge now, which Congress must discuss, is how to re-energise the campaign. One of the most crucial platforms through which we must deepen the campaign is that of mobilising the trade union movement to take up the question of the management and investment of its own provident and pension funds. We want these funds to have returns, but we also want them to invest in areas that will create jobs and develop our communities. We call upon COSATU to lead this campaign and ensure that workers have a meaningful say in and control over the management of these monies, both in the public and private sectors. As things stand now, workers have no say about how and where these monies are invested. This must come to an end. Trade unions need to kick-start a huge campaign on this front, as part of the transformation and diversification of the financial sector.

Related to this campaign is building co-operatives. We have spent a lot of time seeking ways of building capacity both inside the Party as well as outside to create the appropriate climate for building this movement. One of our success stories is the citrus co-op in Zeerust, which produces oranges and feeds about 20 families, as well as a number of other initiatives in other provinces. For instance, the KZN province has initiated a very important engagement and reached an historic understanding with the Durban Metro on how to promote co-operatives in the area. Congress needs to discuss how we take this forward.

Openly and frankly addressing our weaknesses

Despite the many impressive advances and gains we have made, our organisational report to be tabled later will highlight some of our weaknesses that we will have to confront. One of the biggest weaknesses in the Party is that of highly uneven participation by leadership at all four levels in the work and inner life of the Party. A disproportionate amount of inner party work - whether it be implementation of campaigns, party building or fundraising - still rests on the shoulders of a few comrades. Congress will have to spend some time discussing this problem.

Directly arising out of the above, we have not fully exploited the fund-raising opportunities that we have. For instance, the debit order campaign is the bedrock of our fundraising strategy, and could make us financially self-sufficient in terms of operational costs and implementation of basic programmes.

As the SACP, we have not paid adequate attention to the strengthening of our basic structure, the branches and units. We have essentially sustained our campaigns through provincial structures, and to a certain extent our district structures, but very few programmes are driven from the branch level. Starting with this Congress, and perhaps something to be done annually, we will be recognising the best district and branch, as a way of focusing our attention on the need to strengthen our local level structures. We have also not managed to build industrial units to bring the Party closer to the organised working class and the workplace.

Whilst we have creatively engaged in cadre development, both as the SACP and in conjunction with a number of unions, our work in this regard is still far from adequate. It would be important to align our cadre development work with our programmes. For instance, a key challenge over the next few years is to ensure that we take our membership and cadres systematically through Marxist political economy and its basic economic concepts. It is for this reason that we are, together with COSATU, working hard to establish the Chris Hani Institute for Leadership and Cadreship Education. We believe this is one of the ways through which we can strengthen and systematise cadreship development and working class education.

Located within the above weaknesses is our failure to attract and produce women communists in the numbers that we need. The manner in which we hold meetings, our style and times still largely cater for male comrades, without adequate attention to the problems that women face in a patriarchal society. This we will have to address.

The SACP Youth Desk is still very weak, both at national and sub-national levels. The future of the SACP lies in the mobilisation and education of youth about socialism. As the SACP we are convinced that capitalism is not a solution to the problems facing our youth. All that a capitalist system can do is to allow a tiny layer of our youth opportunities for a better life, but the majority will remain in the grip of poverty. Let us mobilise our youth behind socialism as the only system that will realise their potential and offer them a better life. Congress needs to discuss earnestly how to strengthen the youth desks at all levels, through a conscious incorporation of youth issues in all our programmes, as well as focusing on a few strategic issues affecting the youth in our country today.

Another main weakness about which our veterans in particular have been talking is time-keeping. We need to start a campaign in the Party about the importance of time as a revolutionary weapon. Each year, how many months of work do we lose by not starting meetings and events on time, and keeping our people waiting in community meetings and other gatherings. This might sound trite, but it is a very important matter. As communists we should set an example. Let us start here with the Congress, and pay attention to the manner in which we conduct ourselves!

Still found within the ranks of our Party are traces of careerism and what we have called the "step-ladder" phenomenon – where the Party is used by some of our comrades to rise up. Once they have achieved their career objectives, they dump the Party. This is a phenomenon we must seek to eradicate within our ranks, in line with our commitment to unconditional service to the workers and the poor.

We hope that this Congress will confront these and a number of other weaknesses highlighted mainly in the organisational report.

With and for…the workers and the poor

We are gathered here today, on the eve of our 81st anniversary, to consolidate the role of the SACP, this invaluable political organ and weapon of the workers and the poor. And it is precisely because we take our stand, unambiguously, with and for the workers and the poor that we have something vital to offer our country at this particular time.

South Africa is in the midst of a huge, complicated, revolutionary transition. The legacy of the past still weighs heavily on our society, not just in the obvious material ways, but also in attitudes, values, and assumptions. But the new is also complicated. Our 1994 democratic breakthrough coincided with the global hegemony of a particularly barbaric and virulent strain of capitalist ideology – neo-liberalism. The new has opened our society to global trends. The new has seen the rapid advancement of a small but significant black middle class, a new elite. The new is a complicated package of progress, advance, and new dangers.

In the midst of a persisting old legacy and sometimes confusing new realities, it is easy to lose your bearings. For instance, we need, as a country and economy, to attract foreign investment, and so it is perfectly natural that we should sometimes look at our society through the imaginary eyes of potential investors. "The fundamentals are in place", we might say. We need, as a country and economy, to attract tourists, and so it is natural that we should look at our society through the eyes of tourists. "Things are not as bad as they say"; we might want to assert. It is inevitable, and perhaps even necessary, that these things should sometimes happen.

But we should never, never, never allow these perspectives to dominate our understanding, analysis or sensitivity. We must, above all, occupy the trench, not of tourists (as welcome as they are), not of investors – but of workers and the poor. This standpoint must inform our understanding, our analysis, and our morality.

As communists, let us be very clear: WE are deployed, first and foremost, to the ANTI-capitalist sector. WE are deployed to the ANTI-private accumulation struggle. That is our profession. The class struggle is our primary listing. The workers and the poor are our core business. Persisting class exploitation, persisting race oppression, persisting patriarchal domination - those are the macro-fundamentals that are very much in place, and that obsess us. Above all, socialism is the structural adjustment programme, self-imposed, that our country, our continent, our world desperately need.

Being a communist means dedicated and unconditional service to the workers and the poor. Being a communist is not a career, but a commitment to the revolutionary transformation of society, with and for the workers and the poor. It is not a struggle for individual position. Even where we hold positions, it is not for ourselves, but in order to serve the workers and the poor. It is through these commitments that we should renew our vigilance, eradicating from within our ranks any traces of careerism and its twin evil, ideological opportunism, – where one’s ideological outlook assumes all the colours of the rainbow, now one, now another, in order to suit personal interests.

This is the basis of our revolutionary morality, a morality we must always re-assert and nurture as a critical component of defending the revolution. It is a morality of dedicated service, solidarity, collectivism and the fight against all forms of corruption. It is a morality we must struggle for, even more now in the context of being in power, with our revolutionary gains having brought more opportunities for hundreds of thousands of our cadres in the Party and broadly in the liberation movement. We are in power in a capitalist society with all its temptations and trappings, underpinned by a dangerous "lotto mentality", a "zama-zama morality", of dog-eat-dog, with temptations to use positions of influence and power for self-enrichment and disbursement of favours. We need to set an example ourselves of the superiority of socialist and communist morality, as our contribution to defending the values of our revolution.

Since our 10th Congress in 1998, the stature and profile of our Party has grown steadily, through high-profile SACP-led campaigns and growing communist activism on a number of fronts. We have been in the trenches with and for the workers and the poor – in the struggle for jobs, for poverty eradication, for a transformed financial sector, for a developmental growth strategy, for building co-operatives, and for a strong and democratic public sector. We have not been found wanting in the struggles to deepen and consolidate the NDR and in defending the gains of our revolution.

Despite the international setbacks of the early 1990s, and the daily predictions of our imminent collapse, despite attempts by our detractors to constantly belittle us, the popularity of our Party with the workers and the poor has never been as high. We are positioned to make even greater political strides, provided we carefully build on these achievements and ensure that we remain rooted. In the coming months and years we must broaden our impact to all centres of influence and power in our society – With and For…The Workers and the Poor!

Let me take this opportunity to thank the Central Committee, the Politburo, our provincial and district secretaries and their executives, our branch executive committees, and most importantly our membership for a job well done over the last four years. Let me also thank all the full-time officials, staff members and tens of volunteers of the SACP for a job well done!

On my side personally, I have been particularly honoured by the opportunity you gave me to serve you as your General Secretary over the last four years. It has truly been an enriching experience and a rare honour to be asked to perform. To the workers and the poor of our country, it has been a joy to be with you in the trenches, in the streets, in the townships, in the poverty-stricken rural areas, in the farms, in the mines, in the villages, in the various workplaces and at the various gatherings. Despite many difficulties and sometimes in the midst of grinding poverty, I have over the last four years found love, comfort, solidarity, warmth, unconditional support and encouragement amongst the workers and the poor of our country. There is no more nobler a cause than that of serving the working class and the poor!

I wish to thank the poor community of Dambuza in Pietermaritzburg, which brought me up to learn to respect, love and dedicate my life to the cause of the working class and the poor! Most importantly thanks to my family for withstanding many intrusions without a complaint, including many days of absence from home but remaining firmly supportive.

Comrade National Chairperson and comrade delegates, I today feel that we can all confidently proclaim: Socialism in our lifetime!