14 July 2012
The General Secretary of the Communist Party,
National Office-bearers,
Members of the Central Committee,
Provincial Executive Committee Members,
District Executive Committee Members,
The Alliance Partners; the ANC, COSATU and SANCO,
The Young Communist League,
International Guests,
Delegates to the 13th Congress,
All invited guests,
We salute you all in your name.
We welcome you, one and all, to this august gathering in the ninety-first year of our Party, nine years shy of our sister alliance partner, the ANC.
Let me begin by acknowledging that these were five wonderful years of learning, unequalled to any in my experience.
Their crowning moment was our being afforded the opportunity to lead both the Party and the ANC at the highest levels at the same time. This provided us with a broader horizon from which we could observe each individual component of our revolution. In the same vein, it enabled us the space to assess the totality of the national democratic revolution as reflected in its collective, embodied in the Tripartite Alliance plus SANCO.
This is indeed a rare opportunity for any cadre of the Party, one which such a cadre must appreciate and never take it for granted. Comrades, I am grateful to you for this opportunity.
I appreciate the support I received from the Party when I was deployed to the ANC. Notwithstanding problems encountered at the beginning; there is today a deeper understanding of the contradictions in the movement.
The depth of understanding is helpful to our ability to better crystalise the contribution of the Party in redressing the decline of discipline and values of the movement. This requires that the Party, in engaging in challenges facing the movement, is beyond reproach by transcending petty, factional fights and divisions.
It is our Party which has over the years emphasised that, communists serving in other organisations neither do so as communist cliques or factions, nor with an intention to usurp those formations. Communists were and are to be loyal to the decisions of such structures. In a similar vein, Party organs were not to be used or perceived as alternative avenues for dissent when positions were not won in the other formations. It therefore becomes important to define the channels and lines of communication between and among the structures, so there are no accusations of Party members having “second bites” on every debate.
Let us recognise that the Party has succeeded in advancing its Medium Term Vision. The 12th National Congress directed us to deploy cadres in all the centres of power. We have succeeded in this regard. We are today visible in governance, that centre we describe as the highest concentration of political power. We must also appreciate the involvement of our provincial structures in governance, in varying degrees, at that level.
At national level all the current Party officials are serving in the NEC. This strengthens our argument that communists are not “communist members of the ANC”, but members and leaders of the ANC in their own right.
At a provincial level few Party structures reflect the necessary cross-pollination in the ANC structures. The Eastern Cape has greater cross-pollination, followed by KZN and the Western Cape which have a limited presence. Comrades, we must realise that the lack of involvement in ANC structures creates a negative dynamic. It gives an impression of communists asking for favours every time they want to make a contribution.
The reality facing the Party today, however, is that of communists who are not even members of the ANC. Historically all communists were members of the ANC. On the other hand not all ANC members were members of the Communist Party. This complicates relations when there are serious local disagreements. The situation is compounded by comrades who switch to the Party for purposes of seeking to use it as an avenue for pursuing battles lost in the ANC.
Our ability to influence and advance our agenda will be determined our immersion in the structures and programmes of our alliance partners. Such a framework will determine the extent to which we can influence the outcomes of both the September COSATU Congress and the December ANC conference.
Our posture, public and otherwise, will inform others on how serious we should be treated. We should deny ourselves the temptation of treating the ANC as if it has no interest in its own conference and its outcomes. Therefore, we must desist from projecting the Party as the saviour to a radarless ANC, as this could be costly for the Party. The Party must make a constructive contribution in both conferences.
Comrades, we are fast losing our ability to make a positive contribution without claiming credit. Our fondness at alienating others by claiming to have shaped the course of things makes us resemble an infantile purist formation, as opposed to being a mature Marxist/Leninist Party that can play a vanguard role without labelling it as such. It is this ability that made Moses Kotane, John Beaver Marks, Yusuf Dadoo, Ray Alexander, and many other prominent communists, a special breed in the movement as a whole.
Comrades, we have alluded to the fact that our Party is ninety one years old, nine years shy of the ANC which turned a hundred years on January 8th 2012. As we proceed in this decade leading to our own centenary, we should begin now preparing for the SACP we wish to see afterwards.
Given the challenges confronting the Party structures and the membership we have pulled into our ranks, it is necessary that we should begin pondering on the nature and character of the Party cadre required to carry us beyond our century. We should also make such consideration within the context of our alliance with the national liberation movement, the ANC, the trade union movement, in particular COSATU, and the civic movement.
At its inception and throughout history working class politics and its ideological underpinnings injected a certain level of rejuvenation in the structures of the liberation movement, and in the broader liberation discourse. In the current context of a hundred years old national liberation movement in government, and labour movement operating within progressive labour environment under the helm of its alliance partner, what are the key tasks of communists? Comrades, we are not talking of communists in a similar situation as our forebears and stalwarts, as most of us are – in most instances – occupy the levers of power.
The Communist Party must refine its strategy of engagement in public discourse. What has always differentiated the Party and its cadres from all others is its ideological scientific analysis. We are now challenged to provide that scientific analysis to the crises facing our democratic dispensation and liberation discourse. Our detractors must find it difficult, as was before, to contest our solid argument about the ills of society and the causes thereto. Our Party must not be associated with street fights. If there is any street fight our Party is aligned to, it must be the daily struggles of the working class and the advance of socialism.
Many journalists and commentators are disappointed that there are no unsavoury battles in this congress. To have some controversy they will try and describe it as the dry run for the Mangaung Conference. They will develop this theme to a point of calling those elected either a boost or setback for Zuma, or any other perceived clique for that matter. In the majority of cases these positions are imagined.
My declaring that I am not available for the second term as the Chairperson of the Party is not newsworthy. Many would have preferred a contest. Comrades, this is borne of a practical consideration that one is doing a disservice to the Party by being an absentee chairperson. Because this is not an ideological decision one is prepared to serve in the Central Committee if nominated. Being a member of the Party for this length of time makes one appreciate that such a membership is a prestige and a privilege.
Comrades I have just given some pointers that can only be seen as a contribution to what promises to be a rich debate. I am calling on delegates to make the party proud.
I declare this, the Thirteenth National Congress of the South African Communist Party, open.
Thank you