Socialism is the Future, Build it Now!

Sacp Strategic Perspectives

As adopted and amended by the SACP 9th National Congress, April 1995

Section 1

SOUTH AFRICA AND THE NEW GLOBAL SITUATION

Introduction

The negotiations process in South Africa (1990-94), the April 1994 democratic
breakthrough, and our ongoing national democratic revolution (NDR) are all located within
a wider international context. If we are to advance, deepen and defend our NDR, it is
critical that we understand the global context in which we are operating.

The most dramatic international event of the last several years has, of course, been
the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European bloc of socialist countries.
This marked the end of the Cold War which had dominated international relations since
1945. The disappearance of the second bloc of forces, in what had been a bi-polar world,
has major consequences for the countries and peoples of the underdeveloped South.

These momentous shifts in the global balance of forces took place at a time of (and
were in certain respects related to) profound changes in the capitalist world economy.

It is with this latter that we need to start: 

1.1 Changes in the Capitalist World Economy

1.1.1 A crisis of production

The mid-1970s can be identified as a point of crisis in the capitalist world economy.
It marked the end of the long wave of expansion that had characterised the entire period
since the end of World War II, and the onset of a long wave of contraction, which
continues until today.

Unlike the capitalist crisis of the 1930s (which was a crisis in the realisation of
surplus value - a crisis in which the capitalist economies had a capacity that far
surpassed demand); the present crisis is a crisis of production. The crisis of the 1930s
could be resolved by Keynesian measures, basically government spending on major projects
and other interventions designed to stimulate demand. The crisis that began in the
mid-1970s cannot be resolved simply with Keynesian measures. The

new crisis has compelled a profound restructuring of production.

Through the 1980s this restructuring of production has been taking place. Among its
most notable features are:

• The introduction of new technologies, with "knowledge intensive" industries
  setting the pace (for example, the "computer revolution");
• The substitution of many traditional raw materials by synthetics. This has caused a
  reduction in demand for these traditional raw materials;
• "Globalisation" capital increasingly operating on a transnational scale,
  focusing on production for global (that is, export) rather than domestic markets; making
  investment decisions across national borders; and seeking access to materials and cheap
  labour across the globe.

1.1.2 Impact on developing economies

These trends have all had profound effects on the underdeveloped economies of the
South, and on the relations between the South and the advanced industrialised capitalist
economies of the North. Amongst other things:

• The reduced dependence on traditional raw materials has resulted in a significant shift
  in the terms of trade against primary product producers. According to the UNDP, for
  instance, world market prices for some 33 primary products (excluding energy products like
  oil), on whose export the economies of so many countries of the South depend, declined by
  almost half between 1980 and 1991.
• Globalisation has also been accompanied by a highly uneven and unequal process of
  liberalisation. Countries of the South have been pressured to "open up" their
  national economies, by reducing government protection of local producers and by
  privatising assets that can be bought by multi-nationals. But, while this was happening,
  non-tariff barriers in at least 20 industrialised countries became more, rather than less
  restrictive in the decade 1982-1992. According to the UNDP, these "global market
  restrictions and unequal partnerships" have cost the developing countries about $500
  billion. This was six times more than they were spending on development priorities like
  basic education, primary health care, safe water and the elimination of malnutrition.

At first, the response of many developing countries to the onset of the crisis in the
1970s was to follow the "conventional wisdom" and the advice, at the time, of
donors. They tried to restore growth through a combination of government spending and
foreign borrowing. But, in a situation in which the underlying crisis was rooted in
production and not demand, this failed to restore growth. In fact, these measures led to
acute macro-economic instability and huge foreign debt obligations in a

growing number of developing countries.

These developments then, in turn, formed the background against which countries of the
South (and of Africa, in particular) were forced into conditional relations with the IMF
and World Bank. They were obliged to approach these institutions for loans to cope with
their serious balance of payments problems. The price demanded for these loans was the
adoption of a policy package known as Structural Adjustment. Structural Adjustment
Programmes (SAPs) sought to promote macro-economic stability through a standard remedy:

• sharp currency devaluations;
• cuts in the state budget (including spending on education and health-care); and
• the withdrawal of government subsidies on things like staple food prices.

The SAPs also sought to reduce the role of the state in the economy, to
"free" markets from what were seen as distortions created by policy
interventions, and to enlarge the space for private sector entrepreneurs.

The Final Report of the UN Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and
Development (UN-PAAERD) is very instructive on the impact of these neo-liberal SAPs.
Published in 1991, it concluded that Africa was in a worse state in 1991 than it had been
five years earlier, despite the provision of $128 billion to support SAPs. Real per capita
income fell by an annual average of 0,7%, while rates of illiteracy, mortality and debt
had all risen. Workers and other popular classes in

the South have been forced to carry the main burden of the SAPs, while narrow national
elites, working closely with transnationals have sometimes benefitted.

Even before the collapse of the Soviet bloc, then, changes in the world economy had led
to a significant deterioration in South-North relations, to the disadvantage of much of
the South, and most especially Africa.

1.2 The impact of the collapse of the Soviet bloc

The crisis and collapse of the Soviet bloc of countries has had massive implications
for global political realities. While some socialist countries still remain, there is no
longer a fully-fledged second bloc capable of

providing an alternative in terms of international trade, aid, or military and political
assistance. In one sense, then, the post-Cold War world is unipolar, particularly in
politico-military terms. But, on the economic front, the collapse of the Soviet bloc
occurred at a time of declining US hegemony and growing economic competition between the
US, Europe and Japan. Unipolarity coexists with multi-polarity, structured around groups
of core countries in regional trading blocs.

The removal of the Cold War factor has had a complex impact on countries in the South:

• it has had the effect of reducing international support for armed liberation struggles.
  This development began already in the second half of the 1980s, with Gorbachev`s policy of
  "seeking political solutions to regional conflicts". The support from the Soviet
  bloc for national liberation movements (including our own) began to diminish towards the
  end of the 1980s, and then disappeared with the collapse of this bloc.
• on the other hand, during the height of the Cold War, attempts (sometimes very modest
  attempts) at democratic reform and social and economic development in countries of the
  South were often crushed by imperialist forces and their local allies, in the name of
  "rolling back the Communist threat". Western support for many of the most brutal
  regimes in the South was based on this argument. It is an argument which has now been
  considerably undercut.
• together, these two developments have laid the basis for compromise negotiated
  settlements in a number of conflict situations in the South, including our own. This has
  also paved the way for what is, in principle, a progressive and welcome shift to
  multi-party democratic dispensations in many countries of the South and in the former
  Soviet bloc.
• however, this shift (it is frequently a new condition for aid) is often being introduced
  into situations where Structural Adjustment Programmes have weakened the sovereignty of
  governments and grossly restricted the possibilities for development. In the context where
  the immediate prospects of bringing about an improvement in the lives of the majority is
  bleak, the new political space is often occupied by narrow ethnic and regionalist elites -
  this has happened in Africa and it has happened in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
  Union.
• the ending of the Cold War has also diminished the "strategic significance" of
  large parts of the South, as far as the major global powers are concerned. The South is no
  longer so obviously a terrain of competition for geopolitical influence and control. This
  marginalisation has affected Africa in particular, contributing further to the deepening
  downward spiral of neglect, famine, and general crisis.

The "New World Order", which was supposed to rise from the ashes of the Cold
War, has largely proved to be a disorder. This disorder includes:

• the dire effects of Structural Adjustment Programmes throughout the South, not least
  mass starvation in many parts of the South;
• ongoing and deepening political instability in many parts of the globe; and, largely as
  a result of these
• mass migration from the impoverished South to the North, from the former socialist
  countries into Western Europe, and within the South from the most peripheral countries to
  semi-peripheral countries.

The new situation is also characterised by major instability in international financial
markets.

All of this adds up to considerable insecurity as we approach the new millennium.
Global capitalism, which so proudly trumpeted its Cold War victory just three and four
years ago, has proved singularly incapable of turning this victory into anything
resembling a stabilised, let alone just world order. The imperialist-dominated "New
World Order" holds out no solutions and no meaningful hope for the great majority of
the world`s population.

1.3 Locating the South African NDR in the new global context

Within the SACP, since at least 1989, there has been an open and ongoing discussion
about the meaning and implications of these global developments. Or rather, more
specifically, we have debated the implications of the crisis and collapse of the Soviet
bloc. As South African communists, we have collectively led a process of inquiry and
self-inquiry into the implications for socialism of these events. We have refused the path
of unprincipled abandonment of our communist values, our communist organisation, and our
commitment to a communist future. But we have also refused to be stuck in a dogmatic
stupor, as if there were nothing to be learnt, nothing to be criticised, and nothing to be
renewed and adapted in our communist legacy.

Global economic developments since the mid-1970s, and the events of 1989-1991 in
Eastern Europe, have also had a profound strategic impact on progressive national
liberation movements in the South. This impact has, however, been less well analysed from
within these movements, including from within our own ANC-led liberation alliance. We have
not, as an ANC-led liberation movement, collectively thought through the implications of
the new world situation for our national democratic revolution. This is not an SACP
criticism of the ANC, it is a criticism for which we assume at least part responsibility.

Within progressive national liberation movements, the post-independence national
democratic revolution has been seen as a transformation process:

• to consolidate national unity (nation building);
• to consolidate national self-determination, the relative ability to set one`s own
  national agenda; and
• to embark on an economic and social development programme.
• These three basic components of the NDR are all closely linked and interdependent.

The existence, within the world system, of a socialist bloc that could, to some extent,
counter imperialism militarily, politically and economically was central to the strategic
calculations and programmes of progressive, third world national liberation movements.
Through non-alignment, or through active alignment with the socialist bloc, many
progressive movements in the third world achieved some breathing space, a relative
delinking from the crushing domination of world imperialism. (Conversely, the capitalist
South Korean and Taiwanese export-oriented growth paths were, in part, made possible by
their geographic location in the Cold War front-line they, too, were given something of a
breathing space by the imperialist powers, not otherwise afforded to third world
societies).

Where, then, does the new global situation leave the national democratic path
in our own country?

In the first place, we need to understand very firmly that unless we analyse the new
global situation honestly and locate our own struggle within it, our commitment to an NDR
will be little more than the recycling of "worthy but unrealisable" ideals.
Unless we understand clearly the new realities, policies like the Reconstruction and
Development Programme (RDP) will remain an "ideal" that is constantly undermined
by appeals to "realism" in the new global situation. The policies of our new
democratic government, whether in the domain of foreign affairs, trade and industry,
economic restructuring, or nation building and reconciliation, will be hesitant, lacking
in a clear overall strategic vision, and prey to constant ad hoc alterations. We are
liable to tack back and forth between defeatism on the one hand, and a naive belief that
our present international popularity will render us immune from the depredations of a
harsh, imperialist dominated, world system. Even more seriously, the lack of an overall
strategic vision can quickly lead to a pragmatism without principle, and to moral laxity
within our movement.

How then, in the new global situation, do we consolidate and advance the South African
national democratic revolution?

We need to steer a path between two equally dangerous illusions:

1. The first illusion is that we can simply ignore the new global realities, and go our
own way. For better or worse, our country is inextricably part of a broader international
system. Globalisation is rooted in real trends in accumulation, which have significantly
reduced the possibilities for any go-it-alone development. This applies particularly to a
country like South Africa, which is relatively small, semi-peripheral and heavily
dependent on foreign trade.

2. On the other hand, there are illusions that are either naive or defeatist, or both.
These are illusions that we have to accept the global environment as a given and
unchanging reality. From this, it is supposed to follow that we must simply adapt domestic
policies to prevailing international fashions. In this way, it is argued, we will become a
"winning nation" in a world that will inevitably continue to be divided into
"winning" and "losing" nations. These kinds of illusions come in at
least two fashionable variants:

3. one variant is that we must follow the neo-liberal route of Structural Adjustment
Programmes. We have already noted the massive failure of these programmes in the vast
majority of cases, especially in Africa. Despite overwhelming evidence, this prescription
is still loudly advocated within our country;

• a second variant is that we should model our economic policies on the NICs (the newly
  industrialised countries) like Taiwan, South Korea. This argument chooses to ignore:
• the heavily authoritarian nature of these regimes (whose growth paths were dependent,
  not on neo-liberalism, but on massive government involvement in the economy).
• the fact that when Taiwan and South Korea began their export-led growth they had great
  politico-military significance for the US. They occupied key positions in the Cold War
  frontline. This enabled them to secure a high degree of preferential access to the US
  market without having to open up their domestic markets. This gave them important
  advantages, which are no longer available to others, in the initial stages of developing
  export-oriented industries.
• the NICs opted for export-led growth at a time when most other countries were following
  the opposite path import substitution industrialisation based on production for protected
  local markets. Today, almost all semi-peripheral and many peripheral countries are
  attempting a strategy based on non-primary product exports to the markets of the North.
  This strategy is being pursued by numerous countries at a time when global conditions are
  becoming less and less favourable for all to succeed.

1.4 The way forward in the new global situation

The present phase of our NDR is one in which the key tasks are to advance, deepen and
defend the April 1994 democratic breakthrough. These key tasks have a direct bearing on
our relationship to the broader global situation. We need to struggle to maintain the
integrity of our own, national democratic decision-making on key policy questions. We must
ensure that we do not fall into a situation where our policies are dictated by outside
donors, creditors or investors. This, in turn, means:

• ensuring that those who are responsible for negotiating the terms of our involvement
  with the world (in various forums and through various institutions) are not isolated or
  drawn into secret dealings. The more transparent these processes are, the more our
  representatives can hope to win mass support, thereby strengthening their hand.
• that we interact with the world with a coherent, national, strategic approach. Above
  all, we must not allow:

• the central priorities of the RDP (meeting the basic needs of our people);
• the central thrust of the RDP, a programme of massive inward industrialisation based on
  urban and rural infrastructural development;
• and the RDP`s main approach to resourcing through redistribution and restructuring to be
  marginalised and subordinated in a one-sided drive for competitiveness, and an unending
  attempt to woo foreign investors at any price.

However, our insistence on struggling to maintain the integrity of national, democratic
decision-making, and our scepticism about the prospects for an export-led
"miracle", in no way implies that we wish to cut our country off from the rest
of the world. The SACP has always been, and remains, internationalist. Our honest
recognition of the many unfavourable features of the current global situation, impels us
to be a vanguard force in urging our country, government and people, to actively engage in
the struggle to transform the global environment. We reject the cynical acceptance of a
world divided into "winning" and "losing" nations. It is clear that,
in this scheme of things, much of Africa is doomed to remain in the camp of the
"losers". We in South Africa cannot afford to be unconcerned about this. Crises
in neighbouring countries and the marginalisation of Africa will rebound on us in the
shape of mass migration, refugee movements, arms and drugs smuggling, and many other
destabilising realities.

The new international environment, dominated by our class adversary, is difficult for
us as socialists. But it is a global reality that is not without possibilities for
effective engagement. These include:

• a growing range of forces internationally that are critical of the deregulation policies
  of the 1980s;
• the manifest failure of IMF and World Bank SAPs to promote growth in Africa. This has
  meant that these policies have come under increasing fire, even from certain quarters
  within these institutions themselves;
• UN agencies, which lost ground to the IMF and World Bank in the 1980s, are trying to
  recover ground. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has, for example, tried to re-inject
  issues of development into a debate that, in the 1980s, had become focused exclusively on
  economic growth;
• important global movements mobilised around the preservation of the environment, and
  which have similar developmental as opposed to sheer growth concerns;
• a growing number of initiatives to revive South-South co-operation; and
• a wide range of initiatives among socialist, communist, new left and other forces to
  regroup internationally. While these efforts remain uneven, the collapse of the Soviet
  bloc has necessitated and opened up possibilities for a much wider and less sectarian
  interaction.

Despite the many difficulties confronting us, the new democratic South Africa enjoys
considerable international prestige. We need to use this asset, and all other positive
possibilities in the new global situation, to engage internationally in ways which benefit
our own people, those of the African continent, and working people everywhere.

Section 2

ADVANCE, DEEPEN AND DEFEND THE DEMOCRATIC BREAKTHROUGH

We are engaged in a national democratic revolution. The main content of this struggle
is for the liberation of the historically oppressed black and, in particular, the African
majority.

April 1994 marked a decisive breakthrough, a new phase in the South African national
democratic revolution. Until April 1994, the main immediate objective of our liberation
movement was the defeat of the apartheid state. April 1994 marked the end of formal racist
minority rule. The massive electoral support for the ANC-led alliance established the ANC
as the overwhelmingly dominant political force in the Government of National Unity. The
election has marked the entry of democratic forces into some, but not all, institutional
positions of political power in our country.

The ending of formal racist minority rule, while not the final victory of the national
democratic revolution, lays the basis for the rapid advance and consolidation of the
national democratic transformation process, and for the realisation of socialism.

The main objective of the new phase of the NDR is to carry forward the democratisation
process, in order to, and as part of the overall reconstruction and development effort to
overcome the legacy of national oppression. The slogan: "Advance, Deepen and Defend
the Democratic Breakthrough" corresponds to both the immediate and broader strategic
interests of the South African working class, and of a wide range of popular forces. It is
also the most direct route towards socialism in our country.

2.1 Advancing the democratic breakthrough means:

• holding the strategic initiative for change, ensuring that we do not lose the advantages
  and momentum that the massive April majority gave our movement. We must ensure that the
  transformation process continues to be mass-driven. It is critical that we do not squander
  the opportunities of the new situation with hesitation and indecisiveness, or with
  absorption by a new elite in the enjoyment of the "spoils of office";
• assuming full responsibility, as the ANC-led alliance, for our victory and, therefore,
  for governing. We cannot allow the limitations of the transition, like the Government of
  National Unity dispensation, to become an excuse for delays and hesitation from our side.
• developing clear provincial strategies. Even in those provinces where the ANC-led
  alliance did not win electoral majorities, the necessity of advancing the national
  breakthrough of April 1994 remains a key task, and a real possibility.
• carrying the April 1994 process into a victory in the next and critical layer of elected
  government the Local Government elections of November 1995. Local elected government is a
  cornerstone of democracy, and is crucial for the effective transformation of people`s
  lives.

2.2 Deepening the April 1994 democratic breakthrough means:

• using our new possibilities and powers to ensure a thorough-going democratisation of all
  political institutions the executives, parliament and the provincial legislatures, the
  administrations and civil service, the security and intelligence services, local
  government, the courts, the parastatals and the public broadcaster. Political democracy
  should not be confined to periodic multi-party elections. Political democracy must be
  deepened, ensuring that government and the public sector are effective, transparent,
  representative of the class, race and gender realities of our society, accessible, and
  answerable to the people.
• carrying the logic and assumptions of democracy majority rule, participation,
  empowerment, accountability, equality of citizenship into all other spheres of our society
  the economic, social, cultural, and in regard to gender relations. The Reconstruction and
  Development Programme maps out the broad lines for advance on these fronts.
• fostering active popular and specifically working class participation in the
  transformation struggle. This means giving clear and practically implementable content to
  the call for a "people-driven" RDP. This requires the strengthening of the
  grass-roots structures of our liberation movement, and of a whole range of sectoral,
  community based organisations and progressive NGOs, and the strengthening of their unity
  in action through RDP Councils at all levels. It requires adaptation of our mass
  formations so that they are better able to play a developmental role. It also requires
  attention to cadre building, and capacity building.

2.3 Defend

But the April 1994 breakthrough also needs defending. Defending the democratic
breakthrough occurs in the context of shifting and complex new of lines of struggle that
are in the process of consolidation. It is necessary to distinguish the main strategic
opponent and the secondary antagonistic forces in this situation.

2.3.1 The main strategic opponent

The main strategic opponent in this phase of the NDR remains capital, both national and
international. The more enlightened elements of capital have collaborated in the
negotiated settlement. There is, however, a class agenda in this collaboration. The deep
structural crisis of capitalism in South Africa, and the rising wave of popular struggle,
separately and together, have forced on the capitalist class changed strategies and
tactics, in order to regroup and reassert a capitalist hegemony over the process of
restructuring.

These changed tactics involve the acceptance of formal (but not substantial)
deracialisation of South Africa, and a formal (but, again, not substantial)
democratisation. These strategic perspectives are articulated through political formations
like the National Party and the Democratic Party, as well as through specialised business
lobby groups like SACOB. In order to transform their partial retreat into a regrouping and
a reassertion of capitalist domination, an intensive (if "soft") offensive has
been launched against the liberation movement. In particular, this involves fairly
typical, neo-colonial attempts to co-opt into the ranks of capital, a new black elite; and
attempts to transform the liberation movement by buying influence, among the new political
elite, through heavy lobbying, corruption and an unremitting ideological offensive,
spearheaded by sections of the bourgeois press, designed to present capitalism as
"the only imaginable alternative". There are also constant attempts to isolate
the SACP and working class forces within the liberation movement.

All of this underlines why campaigns against corruption, and against self-enrichment
through public office, which will promote a growing separation of the political leadership
from its organic roots among the oppressed and working class masses, are not only moral
campaigns about "lifestyles". These campaigns are deeply embedded within a
working class and popular defence of the April 1994 democratic breakthrough.

Another component of capital`s offensive against the consolidation of our national
democratic revolution is the support of some sectors of capital for federal dispensations,
for "greater regional flexibility", and the cultivation of regional elites. As a
liberation movement we stand for real devolution of power. However, the support of some
sections of capital for federalism is a transparent attempt to subvert the sovereignty and
powers of the new national government, to undermine the co-ordination of the RDP which is
all about a coherent national programme of restructuring and redistributing resources,
opportunities and infrastructure. Enthusiasm for federalism is an attempt to block the
RDP`s focus on overcoming the huge regional disparities in our country. Capital,
everywhere, exploits and exacerbates uneven development, allowing some regions to be areas
for the reproduction of a reserve army of labour, others to be Export Production Zones,
and still others to be consumer markets. Capital everywhere seeks to exploit its own
relative advantages over democratically elected governments and the working class. Capital
is highly and increasingly mobile and very fluid, the democratic state and the working
class have much less geographical mobility. It is for good reason, and without ceasing to
be internationalists, that we have said that our immediate struggle is for a national
democratic revolution.

It is crucial that we analyse and understand the major offensive against our NDR that
is being led by capital. At the same time, there are complex dynamics within the ranks of
our main strategic opponent. We should guard against exaggerated conspiracy theories, and
we should not imagine that capital is a monolithic identity free of contradiction. There
are important tensions between the foreign multi-nationals, local monopoly capital, and
the non-monopoly sector. South African monopoly capital has depended on racial
exclusiveness, sanctions and a protectionist climate to secure its extraordinarily high
level of monopoly control over the South African economy. There is, accordingly, a visible
competition between the multi-nationals and some non-monopoly sectors within South Africa,
on the one hand, and the South African monopoly sector on the other. In part, this is a
race between each other to win the favours of the new political elite.

The contradictions between these different forces might present our liberation movement
with some room for manoeuvre. But there are also grave dangers in simply and uncritically
accepting the logic, for instance, of the "anti-monopoly", neo-liberal rhetoric
of the multi-nationals. By contrast, it would also be simplistic to uncritically accept
the "patriotic" bona fides of the local monopolies. Behind the differences,
there is a single agenda: to accept formal deracialisation and formal democracy, with the
objective of stabilising capital accumulation in South and southern Africa.

The struggle with our main strategic opponent, in the current national, regional and
global balance of forces, necessarily involves an engagement with these forces. We are
attempting to consolidate a national democratic revolution in a global context and on a
national terrain still dominated by capitalism. It is on this terrain, and not in some
separate space, some liberated zone, that we have to contest with our class opponent for
the advance, deepening and defence of democracy, and for a decisive move towards
socialism. This involves ongoing class struggle on all fronts, political, economic, social
and ideological. It also involves the deployment of a wide range of struggle tactics,
engaging our main strategic opponent through the effective use of state power, through
class and mass struggles, and, indeed, through negotiations.

The outcome of these struggles is not predetermined. Despite its global strengths, the
capitalist system, both locally and globally, is fraught with structural crises. We need
to mobilise around our own relative strengths and exploit the weaknesses of our main
strategic opponent.

2.3.2 Secondary antagonistic forces

The secondary threat to the democratisation process comes from those strata in our
country that have been more directly dependent on institutionalised race rule. These
include many white lower middle strata including many in the public sector and in the
security forces; and those who have owed their powers and privileges to bantustan and
other quasi-ethnic institutions.

Lacking the mobility, skills and relative strategic far-sightedness of big capital,
many from these strata have, in the recent past, launched blocking, including violent,
actions against the negotiated transition. With the notable (but largely regional)
exception of those forces within the IFP, these political tendencies, post-April 1994,
have generally been fragmented and marginalised. Many of their strategic demands lack any
coherence or plausibility (for instance, the demand for a "volkstaat").

But these forces have not disappeared entirely. Ongoing vigilance is required. More
importantly, it is critical that their actual, or potential, social base is drawn into and
benefits from the national democratic transformation. The rural poor of KwaZulu-Natal as
much as anyone else, migrant workers, white workers including a growing number of
unemployed whites all need to benefit from and become active participants in
reconstruction and development.

It is possible that, in the medium to longer term, our main strategic opponents might
once more seek to use some or all of these secondary antagonistic forces to slow down the
NDR, or to destroy progressive forces within the national liberation movement. Vigilance,
the effective consolidation of political power, and effective reconstruction and
development are all required. In the end, advancing and deepening democracy are precisely
the best defence of the April 1994 breakthrough.

2.4 The struggle against the oppression of women in the present phase of the
NDR - A Socialist Perspective

As we have already said, the main content of the NDR is overcoming the legacy of
national oppression of the black and, in particular, African majority in our country. In
the present phase of the NDR, this requires the advance, deepening and defence of the
democratic breakthrough. However, there can be no consolidation of democracy, still less
an effective advance to socialism, unless we also, simultaneously, overcome patriarchy and
actively transform gender relations.

This critical dimension is, unfortunately, often forgotten or marginalised. Patriarchy
(institutions, customs and attitudes that treat men as inherently superior to women) has
persisted in socialist societies. Patriarchy has to be consciously addressed and
dismantled, it will not simply wither away because the economic basis of women`s
oppression has been removed.

This has been, precisely, an error made by some "Marxists". In an economistic
way, they have downplayed the oppression of women, and see it simply as a side-effect of
the exploitation of the working class. They have counselled a "pure class
struggle" approach, believing that socialism will automatically end gender
oppression. But socialism is not purely a new economic system, it needs to incorporate
changed political, cultural, moral and gender relations. For this very reason, as
socialists, in the present phase of the NDR in South Africa, we need to struggle actively
for thorough-going democratisation, and we need to insist that this includes the
overcoming of patriarchy.

While some "Marxists" have totally marginalised the gender question, there
are those non-Marxists who argue that class is irrelevant or wholly independent of gender
oppression. This perspective is also entirely wrong. Class oppression, national oppression
and patriarchy intersect and reinforce each other in numerous ways.

The SACP must help to build a broad progressive women`s movement in South Africa. The
SACP needs also to assume a leading role, in the present phase of the NDR, in underlining
the profound interconnections between class, national and women`s oppression. The struggle
against patriarchy requires both an independent focus, and integration into the immediate
tasks of the day the advance, deepening and defence of the democratic breakthrough.

As a party of the working class and of socialism, the SACP needs, in particular, to
focus on those issues that most affect working class and impoverished rural women.

These include:

• land hunger and the lack of basic infrastructure (water, electricity, transport) in the
  rural areas;
• the patriarchal power of traditional leaders;
• violence against women;
• the presence of large numbers of women workers in those sectors of the economy where pay
  is at its lowest and where union organising is difficult (domestic work, cleaning work,
  farms, and small and medium-size enterprises like clothing sweat-shops);
• patriarchal attitudes on the shop-floor which discriminate against women absence of
  effective maternity leave, lack of work-place creches, employment and promotion policies
  that restrict many women to the lower-end of wage scales, etc.
• the dependence of the present capitalist system for the reproduction of cheap labour
  power on the "invisible" and unpaid labour of millions of women as
  child-minders, as carers for the sick and old, as subsistence farmers, and as general
  family and household managers. This is work worth billions of rand, but which never
  features in the calculation of our gross national product;
• high food prices. The food price consistently outstrips all other items in the Consumer
  Price Index, and is the major contributor to rising inflation. Obviously men and women are
  deeply affected by high food prices. But women, who in the patriarchal scheme of things
  are expected to carry the responsibility for feeding and maintaining households,
  experience the trauma of rising food prices particularly sharply;
• the crisis situation in many areas of social service including health, housing,
  education, pensions. All of these crises tend to strike disproportionately at working
  class and impoverished rural women.
• rights of girl children to equal opportunities;
• patriarchal prejudices of all kinds that deny women control over their own reproductive
  rights, including the right to choose an abortion. Once more, while these prejudices
  affect all women in our society, it is working class and rural women who are particularly
  hit.
• Highlighting these specific areas underlines the need for the SACP to:
• pay particular attention to supporting those RDP programmes that are directed to areas
  that most affect working class and rural women for instance, the supply of water to rural
  areas, land reform, democratising rural local government, democratising the shop-floor and
  full union rights for all workers, major reform in the supply and marketing of food, and
  health, housing and education transformation.
• women should not just be the passive recipients of RDP programmes. Women must
  participate at all levels of the RDP process, in planning, decision-making and
  implementation. This will not necessarily happen automatically. It is, therefore,
  important to ensure that special programmes are budgeted into RDP projects to ensure that
  women are actively empowered to participate effectively.
• as a vanguard party, the SACP has a specific responsibility to be forthright in the
  defence of basic democratic values in areas which are sometimes seen as "touchy"
  or "sensitive" within the broader liberation movement. These include the Right
  to Choice for women in regard to abortion, the right of all to freedom in regard to sexual
  preference, and the campaign against the undemocratic powers of traditional leaders. In
  playing this kind of role, we should, of course, ensure that we do not impose a
  "left" marginalisation on these important democratic campaigns.
• The SACP has always understood its responsibility to continuously highlight the class
  content of national oppression. The same applies, as we have already noted, in regard to
  women`s oppression. As a working class party, the SACP must speak out against tendencies
  to confine the struggle for women`s emancipation to the rapid promotion, in the framework
  of "affirmative action", of a new elite of (mainly black) women. The SACP has
  fought for and will continue to campaign for the promotion of women, and particularly
  black women, in large numbers into leadership positions in government and in all other
  spheres of our society. We have only just begun this process, much still needs to be done.
  However, this kind of affirmative action must never be allowed to be seen as the end of
  the matter, or the main content of women`s liberation.
• Finally, the SACP has a special responsibility to ensure that it sets an example within
  its own ranks. This includes:
• integrating gender work much more effectively into party building and into cadre
  development, and ensuring that gender forums within the party are not just seen as women`s
  meetings;
• ensuring that we are much more effective in drawing women into our ranks, particularly
  working class and rural women. This means addressing self-critically how the party
  operates at all levels: hours of meetings; the availability of creches; and tendencies
  towards exaggerated intellectualism, which undermines the confidence of many women
  comrades;
• deliberate inner-Party affirmative action measures with targets to ensure the effective
  participation of women at all levels of the Party`s leadership.

Marx once said that "a nation that oppresses another, can never itself be
free". Exactly the same principle applies to patriarchy. As long as women are
oppressed in our country, South Africa itself can never be free. The struggle against
patriarchy is inextricably linked to the overall struggle for democracy and socialism.

Section 3

SOCIALISM IS THE FUTURE, BUILD IT NOW

We use the slogan "Socialism is the Future, Build it Now" to assert:

• our deep conviction that socialism is the only just, rational and sustainable future for
  the people of our country and humanity at large; and
• that this future has to be struggled for here and now.

In South Africa we are in the phase of advancing, deepening and defending the National
Democratic Revolution. But there is no Chinese Wall between this phase and the
consolidation of socialism. In our conditions, the two are deeply interconnected. The NDR
is not a detour but the most direct route to socialism. On the other hand, as socialists
we are not riding on the back of the national liberation struggle. Socialist values,
socialist analysis, and socialist organisation are critical, not just for the future, but
for the success of the struggles of the present. In South Africa, and of course
internationally, the SACP is not alone in struggling for socialism.

As an SACP we are struggling, here and now, for transformations that are both feasible
and realisable, which have their own inherent value, and which lay the basis for a future
socialist transformation.

This distinguishes the SACP from the "far left". For "far left"
formations, no significant advances can be made until socialism is achieved, and
socialism, by definition, "automatically resolves" all problems of working
people. Within such a perspective, socialism becomes a wholly utopian construct, the
positive mirror image of all the ills of the present. This outlook serves only to
marginalise socialism. Engagement with the issues of the here and now (for instance,
parliamentary elections, or transforming the security services, or struggling for worker
rights) are "futile", or, at best, ways of mobilising workers for some future
insurrectionary event.

Our strategic perspectives and the manner in which we struggle in the present also
distinguish the SACP from those formations and tendencies that are characterised by
economism and narrow reformism. These are tendencies that, while occasionally invoking
"socialism", are so immersed in the immediate here and now that the goals of
broader structural transformation, of revolutionary socialist change are forgotten.

We outline below the main socialist-oriented areas of focus that the SACP needs to
highlight in the present phase of the NDR itself.

But first, we need to ask:

3.1 What is socialism?

Socialism is a transitional social system between capitalism (and other systems based
on class oppression and exploitation) and a fully classless, communist society.

The socialist transition may well be of long duration. The transition may also be
marked by contradictions, stagnation and major reverses. History is never a smooth
process, nor does it have a guaranteed outcome.

Socialism requires working class hegemony, and it is characterised by four core
features:

• democracy,
• equality,
• freedom, and
• the socialisation of the predominant part of the economy.

Each of these core features is important, and they are all interrelated and
interdependent.

3.1.1 Democracy

For the SACP socialism stands for the radical deepening and extension of democracy into
all spheres of society. Socialism is not about the abolition of those aspects of political
democracy (one person one vote, regular multi-party elections, a bill of rights, a
justiciable constitution, an independent judiciary, etc.) which are sometimes (and
inaccurately) referred to as "bourgeois" democracy. In South Africa, we have
fought long and hard for the realisation of these basic democratic rights. It was popular
struggle that achieved the democratic breakthrough of April 1994. Democracy was not
bestowed from above by the bourgeoisie. We shall fight to defend these gains, and we are
not seeking to abolish them in the name of some higher socialist "model" of
democracy.

But these democratic achievements will be largely formal if we do not move beyond the
April breakthrough to a broad advance and deepening of democracy in every sphere of our
society, to embrace a wide range of representative, participatory and direct democracy
institutions and practices. This, inevitably, will carry us into conflict with the
capitalist class.

3.1.2 Equality

For the SACP, socialism is also about equality. We seek to abolish the huge differences
in income, wealth, power and opportunity that characterise capitalist societies. In
espousing egalitarianism we are not arguing for a mechanical, and enforced
"grey" uniformity between all individuals as our opponents like to claim. We do
not ignore that under socialism there will be a division of labour, and that a managerial
function, for instance, will still have to be performed. Nor do we ignore the relative
uniqueness of all individuals. People have different skills, aptitudes, tastes,
aspirations, cultures and sexual preferences. We do not seek to abolish these differences.

3.1.3 Freedom

Thorough-going democracy and egalitarianism are also the basis for freedom. Advocates
of capitalism talk a great deal about "free choice" and
"individualism". But capitalism, with its immiseration of the overwhelming
majority, greatly diminishes the real-life choices and opportunities of most individuals.
Socialism is about increasing, not decreasing, the individual and collective choices
available to the majority of people. Socialism is about freedom from poverty and hunger,
freedom from indignity and illiteracy, from the fear of joblessness, and the depredations
of class, gender, racial and ethnic oppression.

3.1.4 Socialisation

Fourthly, and critically, for the SACP socialism is about the socialisation of the
predominant part of the economy. This is an essential condition for the achievement of
thorough-going democracy, substantial equality and the expansion of freedom. This
conviction, and its centrality in our strategic outlook, distinguishes us from most
contemporary social democratic parties, whose horizons have become increasingly limited to
social reform within the bounds of capitalism.

In the past, we tended to see socialism as nationalisation plus state planning.
Socialisation of the economy is a much broader and qualitatively richer concept. It shifts
the emphasis away from a simplistic concentration only on the legal forms of ownership,
towards emphasising the real empowerment of working people. This empowerment of workers
must include increasing control over the powers of possession that is:

• expanding workers` real ability to impact on work-place decisions, for instance on the
  organisation and management of the production process, product development, etc.;
• and, increasing worker control over the social powers of economic ownership that is:
• increasing workers` power over decisions around the allocation of social surplus
  investment policies, national budgetary priorities, etc.

Clearly, legal ownership forms are one (but not the only) factor in achieving
socialisation. Socialisation of the economy needs to embrace a wide range of social
ownership forms, including:

• a predominant and varied public sector, with enterprises owned and managed by the
  central state, by provincial and by municipal authorities. These public sector enterprises
  would need to be subject to various forms of democratic control, including the scrutiny of
  trade unions, work-place councils, parliamentary committees, consumer councils, and the
  media. Public sector enterprises should enjoy a relative degree of autonomy in the running
  of their affairs, but not a complete autonomy. Democratically elected government would
  have ultimate powers in matters of investment, pricing, and location. Each public sector
  enterprise should also be subject to competition from alternative sources either from
  other public sector enterprises, or from those in the private sector.

A significant and growing co-operative sector.

There would also be a private sector under socialism, mainly made up of small and
medium firms, with an important role to play, notably, in the provision of goods and
services.

3.1.5 Planning and markets in a socialist economy.

In the early phases of infrastructural development, central planning achieved some
remarkable successes in the Soviet Union. But the administrative command style of planning
proved to be brutally undemocratic, inefficient, wasteful and hopelessly inadequate to the
demands of an increasingly modern economy. Planning in a socialist democracy will have to
depart radically from the total, comprehensive and detailed planning of the administrative
command systems in which all enterprises had to conform to a bureaucratically developed
plan without reference to the market.

On the other hand, even modern capitalist economies cannot function without significant
levels of government planning and co-ordination, despite rhetoric to the contrary. Under
socialism, with a predominant socialised sector, the possibilities of a much more
effective and rational planning will be possible. The socialist government will set
targets for key sectors of the economy notably infrastructure, and public utilities
  and it will plan for the provision of training, education and other services.
Planning will be subject to a variety of democratic processes, including negotiation. It
will also be subject to regular assessment and adjustments. The government will ensure
implementation through inducements, pressures and instruction.

Markets will continue to have an important regulating and distributive function in a
socialised economy, but they will not have the ultimate say. Significant areas of society
will need to be wholly or substantially decommodified (that is, substantially removed from
the market-place). Such areas would include much of health-care, education, public
housing, posts, communications, urban public transport, water, electricity and culture.
This does not mean that services, for instance, will not have to be paid for (directly or
indirectly through taxation, for instance). It does mean that their price and distribution
will not be determined by sheer market forces.

Socialism is the future ...

A socialist democracy is a society in which

• the socialised sector of the economy is predominant,
• democratic, rational planning is increasingly possible
• a democratic culture and practices reach deeply into every sphere of social life; and in
  which
• there is a substantial equality in income, wealth, power and opportunities, for all its
  citizens, and thus a growing sphere of freedom for all.

Such societies, and only such societies, will be able to face up adequately to the
enormous challenges of the new millennium. Critical among these challenges is the growing
vulnerability of the earth`s environment. Without the planned, rational, equitable and
sustainable use of our globe`s resources, the physical survival of humanity itself is at
risk. It is a socialist democracy and not the casino economy of capitalism that can lay
the only effective basis for addressing challenges of this kind.

3.2 Build it now...

As we have already said, an effective socialist outlook requires an active engagement
with the present. The SACP played a leading role in the elaboration of the Reconstruction
and Development Programme (the RDP). We have also been involved, through our alliance with
the ANC, in the elaboration of many recent government White Papers and other policy
documents. Our main immediate social, economic and political programmatic perspectives
are, therefore, to be found in many of these documents. There is, therefore, no need to
elaborate on much of the detail in this strategy and tactics document.

But there are certain areas of emphasis and of focus within the RDP, which relate to
our longer-term socialist perspective, that require elaboration here.

In particular, the SACP stresses four key areas of the RDP:

• the RDP as essentially a programme of internal redistribution; and
• restructuring.
• the need for effective co-ordination and coherence of the RDP; and
• its people-centred and people-driven character.

3.2.1 The redistribution of wealth and resources in our country as a core
component of the RDP

Our strategic opponents like to say that the RDP is "a worthy set of ideals, but
where will the resources come from?" Those who pose this question are themselves
usually sitting on the resources. The struggle for redistribution includes, amongst other
things:

• for the reprioritisation of the state budget, so that the whole budget becomes an RDP
  budget;
• a reformed tax system that shifts the emphasis from consumer tax towards income tax; and
  from individual tax towards company tax. There is also the need to expand wealth taxes,
  including land and capital gains taxes.
• land reform that encourages co-operative use;
• increasing trade union bargaining power, including over investment decisions;
• ensuring that state assets required for meeting social needs are not mindlessly stripped
  off and sold to the big corporations, or to an aspirant black bourgeoisie. Core state
  assets need, if anything, to be democratised and socialised, not privatised.

To carry through redistribution two key areas of struggle need to be waged:

Rolling back the market the decommodification of basic needs

Health-care, education, housing, the environment, culture and information should not
primarily be commodities. The SACP is committed to struggle against the overbearing
supremacy of the market which seeks to turn everything into a commodity, and all of us
into simple buyers and sellers. We must struggle for the decommodification of increasing
spheres of our society. A beginning has been made with, for instance, free medical
treatment for children under six and pregnant women. The struggle to deepen and broaden
such measures on many fronts must be sharpened.

Transforming the market

Decommodification of key areas of our society does not mean abolishing the market
altogether, but rather the rolling back of its empire. Insofar as markets continue to be
an important regulator of distribution, we must also engage with them. Markets are not
some "neutral" reality, and there is no such thing as a "free market".
Present markets reflect the accumulated class power of capital. We need to intervene with
collective social power on the market to challenge and transform the power relations at
play within it.

Struggles to transform market power relations include:

• developing an active labour market strengthening the power of trade unions, skills
  training and adult basic education, etc. These are all measures which change, to some
  extent, the terms on which workers confront capital on the labour market.
• the effective use of state subsidies, for instance housing subsidies for the poor, to
  ensure that these subsidies do not simply enrich the building societies and private
  housing developers. Instead, subsidies should be directed increasingly towards community
  housing co-operatives, and other socialised structures.
• progressive government tendering policies to ensure that, when the state does contract
  out work, private sector companies are compelled to implement worker training programmes
  and transform themselves in line with RDP priorities;
• encouraging Community Banks;
• the deliberate use, on the market, of public sector corporations to transform and
  democratise the markets;
• the mobilisation, as proposed by COSATU, of workers provident and pension funds, and the
  democratisation of the relevant financial institutions, so that the funds can be deployed
  more effectively in RDP appropriate ways.
• the establishment of effective consumer negotiating forums and watchdog bodies, the
  reintroduction of more effective Rent Boards, and campaigns against "red-lining"
  by the building societies.
  
• mobilising of mass opinion to influence the market for instance, the use of product
  specific boycotts in support of workers` struggles, or in opposition to bad environmental
  practices by the relevant manufacturer, etc;
  
• regulation of markets.

Attention will also have to be given to ensuring that international markets complement
rather than undermine our own national efforts. Amongst other things, this requires
deepening trade relations with progressive countries, building an effective trade bloc in
southern Africa, and uniting with all progressive international forces in the struggle for
a more just world trade order.

These are just some examples of interventions that are required to transform the power
relations on the markets.

However, we must avoid the danger of confining ourselves to the area of redistribution
(whether through market or non-market means). If we were to do this, we would play into
the hands of our strategic opponents who hope to preserve their monopoly over production.
Capital in South Africa would like to confine the RDP largely to marginal redistribution,
to charitable special projects, to a trickle-down dependent on some hoped for
market-driven growth occurring elsewhere in the economy. This is both morally unacceptable
and hopelessly inadequate as a response to the present economic crisis in our country.

3.2.2 The restructuring of production

The restructuring of production is a second core component of the RDP. The South
African economic crisis is not merely based on a radical failure to distribute wealth and
opportunities equitably. The present crisis is also based on a major structural crisis of
the productive system. The economic growth path envisaged by the RDP is not only
demand-led (that is, based on broadening the market), but it is also fundamentally about
reorienting investments into productive (as opposed to speculative) activity, and about
transforming productive activity, laying greater emphasis on:

• production to meet social needs;
• democratisation and deracialisation of management practices;
• an ever broadening empowerment of workers on the shop-floor, that transforms the
  existing hierarchical, top-down prerogatives of management;
• a labour intensive rather than a capital intensive emphasis, wherever this is feasible;
• higher levels of productivity through much greater emphasis on human resource
  development and life-long possibilities for training and education;
• overcoming massive regional disparities in infrastructure and industrialisation;
• transforming the present, highly monopolised character of our economy, with its
  predatory pricing and interlocking directorships;
• addressing the present marginalisation and disempowerment of women workers.
• developing our productive capacity including a much greater emphasis on local
  beneficiation of South African minerals and other primary products.

3.2.3 The need for co-ordination and coherence in the RDP

The new democratic government has to play a leading role in ensuring effective
co-ordination and coherence in the RDP. Without this the RDP will not succeed. A
government co-ordinating role is particularly relevant for the restructuring envisaged
above.

Amongst other things this implies:

• consolidating and even extending an effective public sector, especially in areas that
  are critical to the major focus of the RDP: urban and rural infrastructural development.
  While we need to struggle for the transformation and democratisation of existing public
  corporations, we must ensure that key public utilities like ESKOM, TRANSNET, TELKOM, the
  POST OFFICE and the SABC are not privatised, or run-down. Leaving the provision of
  electricity or information, for instance, to market forces will perpetuate the gross
  inequalities that currently exist, and will undermine the central thrust of the RDP. An
  effective public sector needs to be the core and the driving force of the RDP.
  
• while safeguarding the Reserve Bank against partisan manipulation (by all forces
  including the private sector), we must ensure that its policies and interventions are
  brought more effectively under democratic scrutiny and control, and into line with RDP
  objectives, by way of amending the Reserve Bank Act.

3.2.4 A people-centred and people-driven RDP with a working-class bias

At the end of the day, the most profound feature of the RDP is its focus on social
needs. The RDP explicitly undertakes to measure its own success or failure in terms of its
capacity to meet the basic needs of our people. Macro-economic concerns like the growth
rate, the inflation rate, or our international competitiveness are all subordinated to
this critical objective.

In basing itself on this perspective, in seeking to prioritise the logic of social
needs over the logic of private profits, the RDP has the capacity to lay the foundation
for a decisive breakthrough towards socialism in our country.

But this will not happen automatically. The RDP will not succeed unless we increasingly
mobilise and actively involve the great majority of South Africans. In this regard, too,
the RDP, with its concept of a people-driven process, has a profoundly socialist
orientation.

A people-driven process involves many practical efforts, including housing brigades,
clean-up campaigns, and self-help housing. A people-driven RDP also requires the
strengthening of local structures to ensure that communities are able to make effective
decisions on planning and implementation.

Neither national liberation nor socialism are events that are delivered to the people.
They are, rather, ongoing processes of popular and working class self-emancipation.

SOCIALISM IS THE FUTURE, BUILD IT NOW!