24 July 2002
Dear comrades and friends,
COSATU is honoured to be invited to make an input to this historic congress, the largest in the history of the South African Communist Party. Your 11th Congress brings together almost a thousand cadre to analyse the present and discuss the future of our party. As such, it is critically important for workers and the poor, and indeed for the future of all South Africans.
For us, as COSATU, the Communist Party is synonymous with the best, bravest and most committed leaders of the working class. For us, mention of the Communist Party brings the memory of J.B. Marks of the mineworkers, Moses Mabhida, Moses Kotane, Govan Mbeki, Yusuf Dadoo, Joe Slovo, Chris Hani – leaders whose work for the Party was intertwined with their commitment to organised labour as well as the broader liberation movement under the leadership of the ANC.
This Congress must live up to the names of our greatest heroes, which is indeed a challenge for all of us. The Communist Party has never wavered from its principles or its integrity. For decades, Party members have pioneered the analysis of our situation. Their insights helped ensure that our struggle took a revolutionary approach, without retreating into narrow nationalism or a short-sighted fight against repressive laws alone. Instead, the democratic movement, led by the ANC, has always understood the need for a deeper transformation of our society – and that vision has stemmed largely from the hard work of Communists. I speak here as the representative of organised labour – and workers will lose most if the Communist Party is indecisive, unclear or disorganised. So you will understand if we are very honest in this input.
Comrades,
Your Congress comes at a time when the SACP, like COSATU and indeed the democratic movement as a whole, faces very complex conditions and challenges. To define the appropriate strategy and tactics in these circumstances, this Congress must reflect on what it means to be a Communist in South Africa today. We must define a strategic way forward, and build unity around that strategy. When we leave here, the Communist Party should have a clear line, which every cadre and every leader will defend, wherever they are. We need to discuss what it really means, in practical terms, to Build Socialism Now!
That means we must answer two questions: First, what does it mean to be a Communist? And second, how does the current situation in South Africa and internationally shape the struggle for the National Democratic Revolution and socialism? The answers to these questions will also tell COSATU what we can and should expect from the SACP in the coming years. In our understanding, a Communist is defined by three key elements: a working-class perspective on society, a Marxist understanding of the world, and participation in struggle to transform society in the interests of the majority.
A working class perspective means fighting to end poverty and give the majority of our people greater say over their destinies, in economic, political and social terms. But that alone doesn’t make you a Communist. You also have to understand the ideology and methodology of Marxism, which sees the causes of poverty and oppression in the nature of the capitalist system and the system of economic ownership and control. That means the only real solution is radically to change class power by developing broader, collective ownership. Even within a capitalist system, we can work to increase the political and social power and the hegemony of the working class and its allies. In recent years, we have heard the argument that workers cannot lead the transformation of society, because they are not the poorest of the poor. But for Marx, the working class played a central role in the struggle to transform society, not because it was the most oppressed, but because it had the greatest potential for uniting to bring about change. That is still true in South Africa today.
Finally, we cannot understand Marxism just in terms of its analysis of the world. A central tenet of Marxism is the need for the poor and oppressed to unite to bring about change. The struggle, in the sense of mobilising for change, is central to being a Communist. As Marx himself said, “Philosophers want to interpret the world. The point, however, is to change it.”
The commitment to struggling for a better world against the main power structures in society means that Communists have sacrificed much in South Africa and world wide – their careers, their personal happiness, even their lives. Communists have always led by example, standing up for their political and social principles, and fighting against careerism and opportunism. We need to discuss what this principled stance means today, when Communists are working in very different conditions in government.
In short, the Communist Party must still aim ultimately to transform class relations in South Africa in order to empower workers and the poor in general. To do that requires mobilisation based on a clear understanding of the international and national realities, as well as strong and principled cadre.
Internationally, a critical debate has become how much scope globalisation leaves for domestic policies that shift economic and political power to workers and the poor. Since our transition to democracy, every measure to increase the economic, social or political strength of the majority has met the argument that international capital will reject it. That has even become the main justification for GEAR, admittedly long after it was adopted.
But how true is this argument? It is probably true that if we expropriated all private capital tomorrow, we would face foreign aggression and economic crisis. But there is considerable scope for measures that lay the basis for stronger social ownership and participatory democracy. They may not establish socialism overnight, but at least they won’t take 150 years to get there. Land reform, support for co-operatives, state ownership of basic services, higher taxes on the rich and on property, cuts in military spending – these and a host of other progressive measures have been undertaken successfully in many other countries.
Indeed, the evidence is that, while capital complains about measures to increase economic and political equality, it only invests where there is growth. And virtually all economists agree that massive inequalities in South Africa are the main obstacle to growth.
In short, globalisation does set limits on our ability to bring about radical change in South Africa. We cannot ignore the power of international capital. But we also cannot let ourselves be paralysed by it. Rather, we have to ask what we can do to increase the scope for change. Within South Africa, the democratic movement first won democracy and then won the elections. That represents two huge victories, which have already led to significant improvements in government services for the majority of our people. But we need to evaluate soberly how it has changed the nature of class power in our society.
Yes, the democratic movement took political power. But that in itself did change the domination of the economy by a few huge mining and financial groups. And it was associated with the opening of the capital to foreign investment, which led to the increasing integration of South African capital into international capital. First, we have seen the movement abroad of our largest mining and financial business. Second, foreign investment has tended to undermine local ownership and production in manufacturing and infrastructure. It has been associated with increasing pressure to privatise state assets, which ultimately strengthens big business at the cost of the poor.
These changes are hardly designed to enhance the power of the majority of our people – indeed, quite the contrary. They have been offset only to a limited extent by the substantial improvement in labour rights, the change in the mineral rights regime under the new Minerals and Petroleum Development Act, some land reform and support for small and micro enterprise, and the improvement in infrastructure and services for the poor.
But the power of capital persists in other ways. Large elements of the state bureaucracy – the policy-making centres in the administration, the “delivery systems” and security services – remain largely untransformed. The same is true of other structures that shape hegemony in society – the media, universities, judiciary and consultants. COSATU is particularly concerned about the biased reporting of the SABC, and will hold a march to its buildings on September 24. We expect to see you all there!
In this situation, the struggle continues. A particular challenge is to maintain the progressive traditions of the democratic movement. Now that it is in power, there is a push to make us adopt more right-wing policies. This Congress must tell us how best we can push back! In effect, the long-standing left hegemony within the democratic movement, which was built up on over decades of experience of struggle, is now contested. That contestation appears in the questions raised about principles established in the ‘50s and ‘60s – downplaying the leading role of the working class in the NDR, calling capital a motive force, and saying the NDR should aim first to build a non-racial capitalism. It appears in the insistence that the NDR should only be a bourgeois revolution, and the argument that we must strengthen capitalism as the basis for socialism. And it appears most brutally in the clamour from some quarters to smash strikes, privatise, cut taxes and weaken popular organisations.
These positions may use our language – but ultimately they say we must uncritically reinforce capital, without even any serious attempt to broaden ownership and control in the economy. We would end up with the same big, multinational South African capital, with a few black faces at the top, and virtually no change for the millions of working poor and unemployed.
An ancient Chinese curse goes: May you live in interesting times. It has come true for the Left in South Africa. The complex pattern of national and global power relations confronts us with very difficult decisions in charting a way forward. We need, above all, to define what compromises are necessary and unavoidable, and where we can push the envelope in order to increase the power of the majority of our people.
At the same time, with the increased social and economic mobility open to our people, there is always the potential for co-option and corruption. Look at the current situation in the Department of Public Enterprise, where a 30-year-old public servant is so well off that he is reported to have said he didn’t notice when he got a donation of R55 000!
A critical challenge is how to link class power to the power of the government. If there is one thing we have learned in the past seven years, it is that the democratic movement cannot rely exclusively on its positions in government to bring about social and economic change. Rather, we also need to mobilise our power outside of the state in order to ensure transformation. That, in turn, means revisiting our understanding of the role of the organised working class, defining its allies, and looking at appropriate strategies and tactics.
In this context, we as COSATU see a three-fold role for the Communist Party. Its functions are:
Let us evaluate efforts so far in each of these areas. To build working class power, the SACP must define campaigns that build the power of the working class and its allies, while gradually reducing big capital’s scope for action. Too often, we have left the space to other organisations and movements to fight for the interest of the poor, including around electricity cut offs, evictions and landlessness.
One reason for our failure to mobilise strongly is that we don’t have a clear understanding of the relationship between mobilisation and government in the transformation effort. The role of the mass movement is to defend the gains of the revolution and tilt the balance of forces toward the revolution – but also to hold us, leaders and organisers, to the values and traditions of our movement, to hold us accountable so that we cannot be corrupted. Because it is true that mass participation and neo-liberal policies are like oil and water: they cannot mix.
Certainly everyone in the Alliance agrees in the abstract on the need for popular mobilisation. The problem is that once people are mobilised, they don’t always agree with their leaders. Many times I have myself heard hard words from workers. But we must treat that as an opportunity to learn, not as a reason to weaken or criticise the popular movement.
A critical task for this Congress, then, is to reflect on the relationship between social movements, the Alliance and the government in South Africa. Since government can only bring about transformation on the basis of mass mobilisation, then this question becomes central in defining our strategy and tactics.
In the coming year, COSATU see a number of campaigns as critical. The most important of all is the Jobs and Poverty Campaign, which seeks to mobilise people around the demand for jobs. The Growth and Development Summit, which was agreed on at the Alliance Summit in April, is a focal point for this campaign.
The Jobs and Poverty Campaign is integrally linked to more limited campaigns to restructure the economy, including:
COSATU has called for a general strike on October 1st and 2nd in order to carry these campaigns forward. All of them demand urgent measures to address the desperate needs of our people.
This Congress would help by locating these campaigns within the broader agenda of transformation. In addition, it should look at campaigns that go beyond immediate economic concerns. These include continuing the Party’s work to strengthen the co-operative movement; support for the extension of the Child Support Grant and the Basic Income Grant; campaigns to prevent and treat HIV; and the acceleration of land reform. We would also welcome a discussion of ways to mobilise the unemployed and young people.
We also need to discuss how we can restructure the pension funds’ investments to benefit the transformation project. Currently, the funds hold over R500 billion – virtually all of it invested by the big financial companies that are now moving abroad as fast as they can. The financial sector campaign must give guidance on how to change this situation so that we can see the increased investment in infrastructure and job creation that we need so desperately.
Finally, to carry out its role in building working class power, the SACP has to take forward its decision to become a mass party. This Congress must discuss how to build the party – to strengthen its membership and organisation based on Marxist principles. That means we need to add another campaign to the list – a recruitment campaign. We can look into ways to link that to COSATU`s recruitment campaign, which is also scheduled for the end of the year.
Building working class power also requires an international strategy. Currently there is no real communist international or clearly defined alliances. The SACP should spearhead a movement of communist parties to maintain their coherence and strength. Only such a movement – a renaissance of international communism – can give strategic leadership to the world-wide social movement opposing globalisation. In the absence of such guidance, the international movement risks fragmentation and misdirection.
A second function of the SACP today is work on policy development and implementation in the government. Given the complexity of the national and international situation, this has not been easy for any of us. This Congress needs to reflect on what compromises are unavoidable, given the current balance of forces. At the same time, we must ask how we can change the balance of forces, both through mass mobilisation and through legislation that affects the nature of the state and ownership. If we accept that the current balance is unchangeable, then we are effectively giving up. In this context, we have to ask how can we manage differences within the Alliance and within government without losing the ideological clarity that we expect of a Communist Party. Should members of the government who are Communists be virtually indistinguishable from other government leaders? Sometimes it seems as if some Communists in government are ashamed of their Marxist ideology and Party membership.
An important step for the SACP’s participation in government would be to define a minimum programme for the Alliance that addresses the real issues of power in society. Such a programme would set milestones for empowering our constituencies in government and in the economy, for instance in terms of building co-operatives, transforming the financial sector and strengthening public enterprises.
The process of establishing such a programme would help us reach agreement on the real scope for change. It would also set up benchmarks to measure our progress. Only when a minimum programme is in place can we meaningfully evaluate the role of Communist cadre in government.
Finally, COSATU looks to the SACP to provide a working-class analysis, a strategic way forward, and education on that basis. This is the only way to ensure mass mobilisation around long-term aims. We need to establish the hegemony of our perspective, with a clear vision, strategy and tactics, which can support and learn from mass-based campaigns. This is a critical role for the Party. Indeed, it could be argued that it is the Party’s defining role, the only function that no other organisation can play.
To assist in this central effort, COSATU has endorsed the formation of the Chris Hani Institute. But we have to admit that we have not made the progress we hoped in this regard. We need to develop a clear plan of action, which takes into account both our needs and our very real resource constraints.
But even before the Institute is established, we need to find ways to capture our vision in educational programmes and media in order to challenge the hegemony of capital. The Party must do more to flood the market with its views, so that the social discourse shifts more in our favour. We need to hear more from your leaders, and from more of your leaders, in the public eye. We shouldn’t hear only from your G.S. and DGS in public, but from all of you. For this reason, Congress should also discuss the Party’s communication and education strategy, and in that context the role of the Socialist Commission.
Dear Comrades,
COSATU’s members and leadership support this historic Congress and are excited by it. We are sure you will succeed in defining appropriate strategies around your work in building a social movement for socialism, working within government and the Alliance to develop appropriate policies, and in developing and communicating your Marxist analysis and strategy. A critical outcome will be stronger campaigns to transform our society, linked to a clear vision on how to challenge the continued hegemony of capital.
Comrades, on behalf of COSATU`s two million members, I wish the best in your deliberations here. COSATU needs the Party – we are sure you won’t let us down!
Vukani Mde
COSATU Spokesperson