The South African Road to Socialism: Build Working Class Hegemony, For a Socialist Oriented National Democratic Revolution

Political Report of the SACP`s 11th Congress Central Committee as tabled before the 12th Congress

Introduction

As we convene at this 12th National Congress of the SACP, we are all well aware that the first decade of freedom is now well behind us. It is a decade of important victories – the achievement of democratic rights, the consolidation of a non-racial, democratic state and constitutional dispensation, the redistribution of considerable resources by way of low cost housing, water and electricity connections and some 12 million social grants.

But it is also a decade in which the stabilization and return to growth of the capitalist economy has strengthened established big capital – the very forces who shaped a century of colonial and apartheid oppression and minority accumulation. Despite legislative gains, the working class has suffered from one million job losses in the formal sector, and from wide-scale casualisation. A million farm-workers and their families have been evicted from commercial farms in the past decade. Some 37% of the work force is unemployed and social (mainly racialised) inequality has deepened. Rural women and women living in peri-urban settlements continue to bear the brunt of poverty and the crises of underdevelopment. Conditions in our often under-resourced and overcrowded public schools and public hospitals are dire.

Things are certainly better than they were before 1994. We must celebrate what we have achieved. We must build upon it. But we cannot simply continue to march to the hymn of “the revolution is on track”, or “today is better than yesterday”, and therefore supposedly “tomorrow will be better than today”. There is nothing pre-ordained, or guaranteed about progress. The future of our country is deeply contested. And that contest is, fundamentally, a CLASS contest.

Will our 1994 democratic breakthrough promise only to deceive? Will our democratic gains become stunted and undermined by a neo-colonial (of a special type) stagnation in which a new elite is simply absorbed by an old elite? Will earnest social delivery, without systemic transformation of the economy, be overwhelmed and undermined by that untransformed economy?

These are not idle questions. There are countless examples of promising post-colonial societies losing their way a decade or so into their independence.

But there is no iron law about that either. The democratic breakthrough of 1994 can be used as a dynamic bridge-head into an ongoing radical national democratic revolution with a socialist orientation. But to ensure that this does indeed happen, requires thoughtfulness, honest analysis, criticism and self-criticism and, above all, organized collective activism.

As we convene at this 12th SACP National Congress, a few months after COSATU`s National Congress, two weeks after the ANC National Policy Conference, and five months before the ANC`s National Conference, our country, our revolution and our movement are, in many respects, at the cross-roads.

What will it be? Business (for business) as usual? Or the radical advance, deepening and defence of the national democratic revolution? Much will depend on the success, the cohesion and the leadership that you, the delegates to this 12th Party Congress, provide.

So, in the first place, let us use this 12th Congress to reflect upon our challenges as communists in the present period.

Almost 79 years ago, meeting in Moscow between August and September 1928, the Sixth Congress of what was then the Communist International, resolved that the Communist Party in South Africa should (and we quote):

“pay particular attention to the embryonic national organizations among the [African majority], such as the African National Congress. The Party, while retaining its full independence [we repeat: “while retaining its full independence”], should participate in these organizations, should seek to broaden and extend their activity. Our aim should be to transform the African National Congress into a fighting nationalist revolutionary organization against the white bourgeoisie and the British imperialists, based upon the trade unions, peasant organizations, etc., developing systematically the leadership of the workers and the Communist Party in this organization [we repeat: “developing systematically the leadership of the workers and the Communist Party in this organization”] …The development of a national-revolutionary movement of the toilers of South Africa…constitutes one of the major tasks of the Communist Party of South Africa.”

That was nearly 79 years ago.

Two weeks ago, cde Thabo Mbeki opened the ANC`s National Policy Conference. Speaking in his capacity as ANC president, cde Mbeki said that the ANC/SACP/COSATU alliance was a strategic and necessarily enduring alliance. He said:

“The objective reality in our country is that the NDR cannot succeed if it does not contain among its motive forces our country`s socialist, trade union and civic movements.”

We welcome this clear strategic statement which was warmly endorsed by the nearly two thousand ANC delegates. We also note that this statement marks an important shift from formal ANC positions of just four-and-a-half years ago. At the ANC`s 51st National Conference in Stellenbosch in 2002, a new Preface was added to the 1997 ANC Strategy and Tactics document. This Preface characterized ANC policy as in opposition to two ideological currents – “neo-liberalism” and what it called “modern ultra-leftism”. Both were identified as essentially “counter-revolutionary”. The attack on what was loosely labeled “modern ultra-leftism” was, in fact, a thinly disguised attack on the SACP and the policy positions emerging from our own 2002 SACP Congress.

All loose references of this kind to “modern ultra-leftism” have now disappeared from the ANC`s current draft Strategy and Tactics document. That is good. The ANC`s hundreds of thousands of members know very well that the threat to the NDR and to the ANC itself does not come from the SACP and its policies. It comes from the powerful private conglomerates whose wealth and power were accumulated under white minority rule. It is the same wealth and power that is now used to menace, cajole and bribe our new democracy. This is where the principal strategic threat to our NDR comes from.

It comes also from the absorption of some of our own so-called “deployed cadres” into the old elite. The threat comes from those “deployed cadres” who have come to identify entirely with the agenda of established big capital. Who, for instance, sold off our major steel producer, ISCOR, to the Mittal family empire? Why are we now having to pay not just import-parity prices but as much as a 30% premium when compared to India and China for our OWN steel? Yes, ISCOR (like SASOL) had been cynically privatized in part by the apartheid regime on the eve of democracy. But until recently, two state entities, the PIC and IDC nonetheless had controlling shares in ISCOR. Who were the “deployed comrades” in these entities that happily sold off this national strategic resource? And is it true, that one such “deployed comrade” now has a holiday home on the French Riviera, thanks to this sale of our national heritage?

We hope that this Congress will pass resolutions calling for the re-nationalisation of both SASOL and Mittal Steel. In making this call we are not just repeating an old left-wing mantra for the sake of it. The re-nationalisation of these absolutely strategic national productive resources must be located within a wider context of ensuring sustainable national energy security and strategic capacity. But let us also call for investigations into the behaviour of so-called “deployed comrades” in both these cases. Our parastatals, our state owned enterprises, our state financial institutions must not be abused, plundered and generally used for personal primitive accumulation. Sooner, rather than later, examples must be set.

The Vanguard Role of the SACP

In making his very welcome observations about the strategic and necessarily enduring character of our tripartite alliance, and in affirming the socialist current as an essential “motive force” within the NDR, President Mbeki did not spell out exactly HOW the SACP should play that motive force role in the present phase of the NDR. We are not complaining. After all, that is OUR task.

However, what President Mbeki did say is that:

“for many decades, the SACP has never sought to delegate its socialist tasks to the ANC, and has never sought to impose on the national democratic revolution the tasks of the socialist revolution.”

The president was right, but a number of newspapers chose to interpret this as a “rebuke” to the present direction of the SACP.

So (for the record) let us state quite clearly that, as in the past, so in the present the SACP has certainly not sought to “impose” anything undemocratically upon the ANC, nor “delegate” socialist tasks to it. But of course we are seeking to influence the ANC and its mass membership in a constructive, open and non-factionalist manner. We are seeking, without apology, to underline the imperative of many socialist-oriented policies and programmes in order to advance, deepen and defend the very NDR itself in the present phase of struggle.

And, judging from the recommendations emerging from the ANC`s national policy conference two weekends ago, the SACP has had considerable, if sometimes belated, success in this regard. When, in 1996 government introduced its GEAR macro-economic policy and told us it was “written in stone”, the SACP raised serious concerns. We didn`t (as is often falsely claimed in the media) dismiss the need for the careful management of our foreign currency reserves, our inflation rate, or our budget deficit. But we did strongly criticise the notion that macro-economic management was virtually all that government could do while leaving the rest to the market. We called (and we were the first in SA to call) for an industrial policy that addressed the skewed character of our economy. We said that macro-economic policy should be aligned to industrial policy. Our views were dismissed at the time.

When government`s GEAR macro management policies failed to produce a major flow of productive investment into our country, there was a move to a massive privatisation drive. Once more, the SACP opposed this move, and we called instead for the forging of a democratic developmental state capable of driving socio-economic transformation. Again we were among the first in South Africa to elaborate this perspective. Again our views were dismissed, or rather given passing lip-service at the time.

We are pleased to say that our government now treats both industrial policy and the developmental state as cornerstone strategic objectives. The ANC delegates to the ANC policy conference strongly confirmed and elaborated on these broad strategic objectives.

If anything, our role as a socialist “motive force” within the Alliance and within the NDR, has been intensified over the past 5 years since our last congress.

We last gathered this way exactly 5 years ago, with a membership of some 20 000, with no Young Communist League, with no (partial) amnesty from the Credit Bureaux, with no National Credit Act, with no Land Summit, with no Co-operatives Act, with no Co-operative Banks Bill, with no Umzansi account and insurance. We are now gathered here this time with over 51 000 members, with a strong and vibrant YCL, a partial amnesty for our people black-listed on the credit bureaus, with the National Credit Act, the Co-operatives Act, the Co-operative Banks Bill before our legislators, having held the National Land Summit last year, and with an Umzansi account!

These are but some of the important advances and victories that our Party, through its mass campaigns, has achieved within a period of 5 years since our last Congress. These are achievements that we should be proud of as an organization.

When we last met, we were in the midst of intense struggles against privatization of state owned entities. We note with satisfaction that working class struggles have contributed decisively to stopping, at least for now (and we hope forever), the wholesale privatization of state assets. The last five years have also witnessed the intensification of class struggles on many fronts, and as the SACP we are proud of the fact that we have led some of these struggles, as well as being active participants in others. We have been combatants together with the working class, in the trenches, in the struggle for the reconstruction of our country. This Congress will have to map out a strategy and a programme to intensify the struggle of the working class on all fronts.

Indeed communists have been performing outstanding work in various sites of struggle and various institutions. Communists have been in the state, in our communities, in the trade union movement, in the struggle against the HIV/AIDS, in gender struggles, and indeed on many other terrains.

We are gathering under the theme ‘Communist Cadres to the Front… To build a better, socialist world`! We are meeting to elaborate and adopt a programme of action for the next five years.

The South African Road to Socialism

The most important challenge facing this Congress is to concretely map out the programme of our Party, not of anybody else, but of the SACP. The challenges that lie ahead require that we decide collectively for ourselves as the SACP. It is a task we can never outsource, under any conditions!

Of course, our alliance is important to us, very important. But we are better able to engage with our alliance, if we are clear about what we want to do. We are better able to impact on our allies and alliance on the basis of our programmatic perspectives, aims and goals. This is crucially related to our task of leading a struggle to build working class hegemony in society, and this should be our guide.

Ours is a struggle for socialism! It is for this reason that we propose that we clearly map out our road to socialism, given contemporary domestic and global challenges, as well as the opportunities and space created by our democracy to advance the struggle for socialism. That is why we propose that the Programme we should adopt here should be ‘The South African Road to Socialism`. Why do we propose this to this Congress?

Firstly, it is important for us as communists, in the midst of the struggles to deepen, consolidate and advance the national democratic revolution, that we never for once lose sight of our goal to achieve a socialist South Africa. In fact, as we say in our draft programme, the very consolidation of the NDR requires some socialist measures in the here and now.

Second, ‘The South African Road to Socialism` must serve as a yardstick against which we assess whether the SACP and broader working class struggles are indeed taking us closer to a transition to socialism. Third, our programme should act as a guide in our current struggles, to ensure that we do indeed deepen and advance a working class led and socialist oriented national democratic revolution, as the only guarantee to secure a transition to socialism in our country.

The SACP is of course not part of the national democratic revolution merely as a stepping stone to socialism. The attainment of the objectives of the NDR is something that is of fundamental importance and in the deepest interests of the working class. The total liberation of the African people in particular, and blacks in general is an important objective in itself, that ensures that the working class itself is completely freed from the burdens of colonialism of a special type. However, at the same time, as the SACP we know that we can never attain the total liberation of Africans and black people under capitalism. This is simply because capitalism continues to reproduce some of the key features of colonialism of a special type.

Much as we should not conflate the national democratic revolution and socialism, the two are deeply interlinked. Our road to socialism is through a working class led, socialist oriented national democratic revolution. It is on the terrain of the national democratic revolution that we are struggling for a socialist South Africa; hence the continued relevance and importance of our programmatic slogan ‘Socialism is the Future, Build it Now`.

Our programme must not just be a document, but a living, dynamic reality that guides us in action, but also it must be informed, enriched and developed by our practical actions and experiences. It is only through the most consistent implementation of our programme that we are able to enrich it.

Our Medium Term Vision

In pursuing a working class led NDR, we are guided by our Medium Term Vision (MTV). Our MTV enjoins us to lead a process of building working class hegemony in key sites of power. Our MTV was immediately informed by our assessment of the first decade of our democracy. The SACP, in evaluating the first decade of our democracy, came to the conclusion that in economic terms white-dominated monopoly capital was the single biggest beneficiary, at the direct expense of the working class, which experienced casualisation, a job loss bloodbath and outsourcing. Therefore the first decade of our democracy, in economic terms, became the decade of the white-dominated bourgeoisie, joined by a small black elite.

The MTV seeks to ensure that the second decade of freedom becomes the decade of the workers and the poor, by advancing and consolidating a working class led and socialist oriented national democratic revolution.

The key challenge for this Congress therefore is to develop a concrete programme of action, based on the pillars of our MTV. Indeed all our campaigns talk to different parts and components of our MTV, but we need to use this Congress to systematize these campaigns such that we enhance their transformational impact and consciously seek to use them as part of building working class hegemony in key sites of power.

Another critical challenge, which we shall return to later, is that we need to restructure the SACP at all levels in line with our objective of building working class hegemony in all key sites of power. The Alliance also requires to be restructured and revamped as part of ensuring that the working class does indeed play its key role as the main motive force of the NDR.

What is working class hegemony?

It is important that we as the SACP are clear about what our conception and understanding of working class hegemony is. Building working class hegemony is not an abstract task, but is a product of working class struggles waged in concrete conditions under particular circumstances.

The SACP, which strives to be the vanguard of South Africa`s working class, should seek to lead the overall struggle to build working class hegemony in society. It is not enough to simply wage a multiplicity of working class struggles hoping that they, on their own, will cumulatively lead to building working class hegemony in society. We should seek to weld these struggles together with an ideological clarity and concrete objectives, and these should be understood by the overwhelming majority of the working class. In short, working class hegemony is conscious organized power of the working class guided by our overall objectives of deepening, advancing and consolidating the national democratic revolution towards a transition to socialism. It is power and influence of the working class to drive a developmental agenda beneficial to the workers and the poor of our country. It is also the increasing influence and power of working class ideas in society. Whilst this struggle will be fought on a number of terrains and with the involvement of a variety of working class formations, a political party of the working class is indispensable in leading this effort.

For the SACP to play its vanguard role it needs to uphold and defend its independence at all times. An independent SACP does not mean a party standing above the working class, it must be immersed within the lives and daily struggles of the working class whilst simultaneously seeking to be at the head of that class.

There is no contradiction between an independent working class party and entering into strategic and tactical alliances. There is no victorious socialist revolution that has ever been waged by the working class on its own. Working class revolutionary victories have always involved strategic or tactical alliances with other forces in society (the peasants, the urban and rural poor, sections of the middle classes, etc). In fact, to paraphrase Lenin, it is only an independent working class party that is able to enter into alliances without submerging its identity in those alliances nor compromising its programmes. Indeed there can be no alliances without some compromises, but such compromises must seek to advance the overall and longer term objectives of the working class.

There are a number of key organizational, political and ideological dimensions in the struggle to build working class hegemony in society, over and above the centrality of the political party of the working class.

A central challenge in building working class hegemony in society is the building of a strong, militant and united trade union movement (if not in constitutional form then at least in action). This is because the organized working class constitutes the leading detachment of the working class as a whole, with the SACP as its vanguard, and drawing upon the best, the most advanced and the most dedicated working class cadres, especially, but not exclusively, from this leading detachment.

We already have a relatively large organized component of the working class, whose leading sections are part of the Congress movement. The SACP will have to pay particular attention to the strengthening and growth of COSATU as the leading trade union federation in our country and as our ally. However, in order to build working class hegemony in society it is important for the SACP to also pay close attention to, and organize within, non-COSATU trade union formations. The intensifying working class struggles since our 11th Congress have been characterized by growing co-operation between COSATU and other trade union federations and independent unions, perhaps in a manner unseen since our democratic breakthrough of 1994. The recent strike by workers in the public service is a classic example of this increasing solidarity and joint action between workers from different federations and traditions. This Congress will have to come out clearly in outlining the tasks of the SACP in relation to the trade union movement as a whole.

A critical challenge for us in the struggle to build working class hegemony is to seek to build a broad based working class unity through the organization and mobilization of the various strata of the working class, especially the informalised working class. This requires creative methods of organization around the immediate economic and other interests of this informalised working class (without being economistic in the manner in which we take these up). Already many of our campaigns have resonance amongst informal traders and other such informalised sectors of the working class.

An even bigger challenge for the SACP is that of organizing the growing urban and rural poor, located in the townships, the informal settlements, the former Bantustans and what we refer to in our programme as the ‘white countryside`. This means that taking up struggles in our communities, through our Know Your Neighbourhood Campaign and other campaigns, must be seen as a critical component not just in terms of transforming conditions in our communities, but as a critical component of building working class hegemony. Of even more significance is that such struggles are also part of building forces allied to the working class.

All this underlines that there is no singular organizational form to build working class unity and hegemony. We need to properly grasp the strategic and tactical implications of the modes of organization and different social and economic locations of the working class. This should, however, also not detract from the organization of the working class at the point of production as the primary economic concentration of the power of the working class. But working class organization should not simply be reduced to its power on this front. Therefore the struggle to build working class hegemony is a multifaceted, all round struggle that should combine using our campaigns, economic and consumer interests, activities and struggles of the working class, and the social struggles and formations in which the working class is located. For example the working class is to be found in its numbers in the churches, in stokvels, sports activities etc.

Some of our campaigns have for instance drawn the attention of the churches, other religious formations and traditional leaders. What should be the strategy of the SACP in working in these arenas as part of the overall thrust of building working class hegemony in society? We have for instance had engagement with the churches who have approached us especially around our financial sector and land campaigns. But we have not managed to follow up on these, perhaps primarily because our Party is not yet organized along the lines of the pillars and terrains of struggle as outlined in our MTV.

Building working class hegemony must primarily also mean building a momentum for socialism in our country. How we achieve this depends on our ability to weld all the working class struggles, in all their terrains and locations, as part of building a broad movement for socialism in our country.

The balance of forces

In order to take forward the struggle to build working class hegemony in society, it is important, at all times, to grasp both the global and domestic balance of forces which, whilst distinct, are deeply interrelated and intertwined. An analysis of the balance of forces is always an exercise fraught with potential problems. This is because the balance of forces is always both fixed and fluid. It is fixed in so far as at any particular historical conjuncture one can tease out the specific features and character of a particular period or conjuncture. But at the same time the balance of forces can change and be changed, and therefore the balance is fluid. In different conjunctures the balance of forces may be either rather static or extremely fluid.

A related question here is that of the relationship between the global and domestic balance of forces. Whilst the two are deeply interrelated, they are at the same time not reducible to each other. It is possible that the domestic balance of forces can be extremely favourable, but in a world gripped by imperialism and its increasing militarism can make it extremely difficult for progressive forces to pursue a radical revolutionary agenda. At the same time it is possible to use a favourable domestic balance of forces to pursue a more radical developmental agenda, despite a hostile global environment.

The global balance of forces

When we met at our 11th Congress we concluded that the ‘end of history` thesis was in a crisis. The promise of neo-liberal economic policies to deliver a better life for the majority of the workers and the poor in the world, especially in the developing world, was failing to materialize. The end of the Cold War had worsened rather than improved the condition of the majority of the peoples of the world.

The world is currently under the firm grip of a US-led, increasingly militaristic imperialism. The US National Security Strategy boldly and stridently calls for a world shaped in the image of the United States. However, the very same US National Security Strategy betrays a deep-seated fear of possibilities of emergence of alternatives and a challenge to the currently US-led imperialism.

In fact since our 11th Congress there are growing counter-hegemonic forces that are emerging that provide a basis for challenging the current imperialist order. The emergence of China, together with Brazil and India as a potential counter-hegemonic bloc provides new opportunities for reshaping the current world order. The open challenge, including through electoral victories, to neo-liberal policies in Latin America, together with fledgling peace and anti-globalisation movements also mark a shift away from the overwhelming dominance of the imperialism of the early 1990s. As we point out in our draft political programme, the unsustainability of current global accumulation provides fertile ground for an alternative world.

The domestic balance of forces

The ANC-led alliance has won three successive national and provincial and two local government elections with increased majorities. South Africa also has a relatively large and well-organised working class. These, amongst other things, provide us with huge opportunities and possibilities, without necessarily completely delinking from, or overlooking the reality of imperialism, to pursue a more radical developmental agenda. The SACP has consistently critiqued government economic policies in that their calculations have tended to privilege the hostile global environment without adequately using the generally favourable internal balance of forces.  This is not to argue that the economic dominance enjoyed by white-dominated monopoly capital with its strong international links should be ignored. But the overwhelming support and legitimacy of the ANC, coupled with a wider sympathy in the immediate post-apartheid period, could have been used to pursue much more radical policies than the GEAR policies of 1996.

Inevitably an attempt at a proper analysis of the current domestic of forces will also have to entail the kind of society we have built since 1994, as part of assessing the balance of class forces within the national democratic revolution at this point in time.

1. The working class

South Africa`s working class can broadly be divided into core, peripheral and informalised sections. In addition South Africa`s working class is still stratified along racial lines, with the small white working class stratum still predominantly occupying the more permanent and skilled jobs, and the existence of a hierarchy within the black working class itself, with the Indian and Coloured sections of the black working class often (but not always) occupying marginally better jobs than their African counterparts.

The African sections of the working class in particular are not moving in required numbers into skilled jobs, especially in the manufacturing, mining and financial sectors. This is also manifested through key shortages of skills, and the fact that artisanal training has been neglected for nearly two decades. The average age of an artisan in South Africa is now 54 years.

A large section of the working class is located in the most exploited and marginalized sectors, domestic and farming. Trade union organization in these sectors of the working class is proving to be very difficult, yet it is with the proper organization of these workers that the power of the organized working class will be drastically improved.

It is women who increasingly constitute the most marginalized and the most exploited sections of the working class, found in the farms, in domestic work and casualised labour. Hence there is the reality of the increasing ‘feminisation of poverty and capitalist exploitation` globally and domestically. Building of working class power enjoins us to pay particular attention to the organization of women workers.

Despite the fragmentation of the working class, it is this class that still carries the best organizational weight, traditions and capacity, to drive the national democratic revolution. The increasing inter-racial and inter-occupational co-operation of the working class in contemporary working class struggles is another important platform to build broader working class unity.

It is this class that remains of decisive importance in holding the balance of forces not just in favour of itself, but in favour of progressive forces as a whole in the national democratic revolution. This class has, since our last congress, embarked on intensified class struggles to defend the public sector and fight back the assault of the capitalist class on many of the gains it has made since 1994. It truly still remains the main motive force of the national democratic revolution and our main weapon to decisively change the balance of forces generally in favour of the workers and the poor. The challenge, as pointed out above, is to strengthen the organizational and ideological capacity of the working class to ensure a socialist oriented national democratic revolution. Despite the many challenges facing the working class, in so far as its organizational and mobilization capacity is concerned, it clearly holds the potential balance of power, something we need to deepen.

It is therefore of utmost importance that in our approach to the development of an industrial strategy, the question of training and skilling of the working class must not be seen as an isolated strategy, but a central component in seeking to shift the balance of forces.

3. The Middle Strata

Since the 1994 democratic breakthrough there has been significant growth of especially the black sections of the middle strata, this has particularly occurred in the public sector with uneven development in the private sector. However this does not mean that there has been a decline of the white middle strata. The white professional middle strata, often at the behest of big capital, still dominate the managerial ranks in the private sector. Most of the technical, engineering and scientific professions are still overwhelmingly dominated by whites. This is continuously being reproduced in our higher education system where black graduates are predominantly to be found in social sciences (not a bad thing in itself) with fewer numbers of blacks enrolled in the more technical and engineering professions.

South African middle strata, especially its black sections, seem to be heavily indebted. Circumstantial evidence for this is the popularity among these strata for our campaign for a once-off amnesty from the credit bureaus. The economic growth in our country that is often attributed to the emergence of black middle class strata and their consumer spending might prove to be a bubble that may burst at any time.

The traditional black petty bourgeoisie (small shop keepers), have often found themselves worse off than before, squeezed from both above and from below. This was traditionally the membership and social base of an organization like NAFCOC.  One would have ordinarily expected that these would be the foremost candidates for elite BEE. They however have been squeezed from above by the politically connected emergent black sections of the bourgeoisie. They have also been squeezed from below by the burgeoning spaza shops and informal sector, which is increasingly absorbing the retrenched working class. This has amongst other things radically changed the character of an organization like NAFCOC, which now increasingly represents the retrenched working class trying to eke a living in the informalised taverns, spaza shops and some marginal SME economic activitites.

However there is an emerging post-1994 petty bourgeoisie involved in a do-or-die struggle for small government tenders mainly at municipal level. This tendering is incidentally usually a white ‘remote-controlled` process, where its black male dominant beneficiaries are often used as black fronts, with women being used to ‘beautify` the gender content of such tenders to meet empowerment criteria

The black middle strata are varied; sections are liable to side with either of the principal classes, the working class or the bourgeoisie. The state of the middle strata is such that they are not currently positioned to play a significant role as a motive force in their own right. They are characteristically fragmented and lacking the capacity to develop a coherent strategic focus on the developmental challenge in the country.

However, it is critical that the SACP, the working class, and the broad Alliance actively engage, mobilize and organize these strata. A variety of strategies are required. For those professional middle strata located in the public sector, we need to mobilize them around their professional values and around the strategic tasks of a developmental state. This requires an active struggle against professional elitism, narrow managerialism, and the corrupting influence of the capitalist market.

In regard to the survivalist “middle” strata, spaza shop owners, small-time minibus operators, etc., we need to draw them into working class community struggles against crime and the domination of local war-lord structures, for local development and infrastructural development, for community re-investment, and for coops. The local developmental state is a critical catalyser for creating the conditions in which a localized social economy can be built with the cooperation of these third world “middle” strata.

But there are also many possibilities for winning over more affluent sections of the middle strata to a progressive NDR struggle. In particular, they too suffer from the CST distortions of our persisting economic accumulation path. It is an accumulation path characterized by excessive concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the mineral-energy-finance conglomerates. This distorts many things in our economy – the cost of banking, the non-availability of financing, the politics of water, energy, telecommunications and logistics. The Freedom Charter was quite correct in singling out the monopoly sector of our economy, and specifically the mines and banks. The monopolization of power and wealth in these quarters undermines a very wide range of classes and strata in our society, and this is a key basis for a working-class led but multi-class national democratic struggle. Our own financial sector, land and agrarian, cooperatives and public transport campaigns have already clearly illustrated these possibilities.

4. The Bourgeoisie

Our Special National Congress Discussion document outlined in some detail the state of the bourgeoisie in our country today. The South African bourgeoisie remains the key strategic class opponent of the working class.

As we have consistently argued, the predominantly white bourgeoisie, and particularly the dominant monopoly sectors have been the single biggest beneficiary of the accumulation regime that has been restored to profitability in the post-1994 period. Not all sectors of capital have benefited equally. Key manufacturing sectors have been seriously weakened as a result of precipitate market liberalization measures. Medium-sized agricultural capital has also suffered for similar reasons, and with the growing grip of multinational conglomerates on agro-processing. The number of dairy farms in our country, for instance, has declined precipitously from over 7000 three years ago, to less than 4000 now. In the absence of any coherent industrial strategy, these changes have been purely market-driven – and they have, therefore, favoured those monopoly forces, domestic and international, that dominate the market.

The class power of big capital has also been reinforced by a deliberate grooming and buying out of a key cadre in the state. In our own direct experiences through our campaigns, especially in negotiations at NEDLAC and in other forums, a key cadre of the state listens more to business than the working class, especially on major economic questions.

Key South African monopolies have further strengthened themselves in the post-1994 period through trans-nationalisation, with foreign stock exchange listings and even, in some cases, headquarters now located outside of South Africa. We now confront this enormous power and wealth, accumulated through the blood, sweat and tears of South African workers, as if we were trying to woo foreign investors.

Since 1994 there has been an emergence of a small, but not insignificant, black capitalist stratum.  As we point out in the state power discussion document, much of this stratum of the bourgeoisie is highly compradorial and parasitic. It is largely dependent on special loans made by established capital which still controls virtually all the means for the production and reproduction of its black counterparts.

This emerging capitalist stratum also remains heavily dependent on government interventions through the BBBEE codes of conduct and the procurement policies of government itself. This dependency CAN (and should) be used strategically by the state to drive a clear developmental agenda that begins to transform the CST accumulation path within which we remain locked. However, all too often “empowerment” – i.e. enrichment – of this stratum becomes an end in itself without any attention to national democratic transformational goals. Not only does this strengthen the strategic agenda of established monopoly capital, but it also risks corrupting and deflecting the democratic state.

We need to use state power and resources not merely to “de-racialise” the existing accumulation path of capital, but to transform it. This may well involve awarding state tenders to an emergent medium-sized capitalist stratum, but this must be integrated into a clear transformational agenda that includes strategic industrial policy goals, job creation, skills development, and balanced spatial development.

There can be no genuine empowerment of the previously oppressed at any level, no matter how good the intentions are, without a fundamental transformation of the colonial economy that we have. Left untransformed, the colonial character of the economy will continue to reproduce the very same ‘national relations` we seek to transform.

Another defining feature of big capital in South Africa is its role in the continent. It is currently estimated that 40% of all foreign direct investment into the African continent now comes from South Africa. It is potentially a healthy development that Africa can mobilize its own internal resources for investment. Unfortunately just as the colonial character of our economy remains largely intact, the role played by South African capital in the continent tends to be more sub-imperialist than developmental in character. Its behaviour is predatory, exploiting in many instances weak labour market regimes to maximize exploitation of the workers and the poor. The forging of a democratic South African developmental state hegemonised by the working class will play a critical role in transforming the character of South African capital investments in our region and continent.

e. Gender transformation, patriarchy and women`s organisation

Our draft political programme for discussion and adoption at this congress pays some attention to the gender question through the prism of patriarchy. This is an important angle that our party is taking, to approach gender transformation from the standpoint of confronting patriarchy in society, as the main social phenomenon that continuously reproduces gender inequality.

Much as the struggle for women`s emancipation in our broader national liberation struggle is as old as our liberation itself, perspectives on gender transformation only really developed later. The maturation of gender perspectives was an outcome of persistent women`s struggles and organization within our movement, workplace and trade union struggles around issues such as maternity leave, and new forms of women`s and gender struggles in the 1980s, putting women`s emancipation as the central pillar of addressing inequalities between men and women. This was part of the broader anti-apartheid struggle.

The organization of women, and the metamorphosis of the women`s struggles into broader struggles for gender equality was a decisive factor in shifting the balance of forces in favour of the national liberation movement in the struggle against apartheid. Of significance in these women`s and gender struggles in the 1980s were the centrality of working class women and the issues affecting them.

It was these advances and perspectives that centrally shaped the negotiations process which placed women`s and gender issues at the centre of our new constitutional dispensation. The highest point of these struggles was the formation of the National Women`s Coalition, which adopted the Women`s Charter in the early 1990s. All these laid a firm foundation for the many progressive policies and legislation that has come to be the centerpiece of our new democracy.

These very important advances are however daily being threatened by the emergence of an elite consensus around especially the economic direction of our revolution. This means that the progressive women`s and gender discourses are being ‘colonised` by the narrow BEE model with a focus on and benefits going to an elite layer of women. This has been accompanied by less focus on the needs of the overwhelming majority of women who are working class and poor, with more prominence being given to women advancing into senior positions in government and the private sector.  Whereas the principal issues facing women today are casualisation, retrenchments, poverty and access to basic services. In so far as matters relating to working class and poor women are concerned these tend to be reduced to merely matters of the so-called ‘second economy`, and they do not feature in the restructuring of the so-called ‘first economy`, which is responsible for reproducing the socio-economic conditions of the majority of women.

The establishment of a progressive women`s movement is a development that the SACP has welcomed. We have welcomed this principally because it is, hopefully, informed by the realization that women`s advancement since 1994 has tended to focus more on elite women with inadequate attention to the mobilization of ordinary women for the benefit of the majority.

Therefore the challenge of women (and men) in our Party is to strengthen a working class led women`s movement whose priorities reflect the problems confronting the majority of South African women. In order to do this we need to return very firmly to the radical vision of the Freedom Charter and the Women`s Charter for Effective Equality adopted in 1992, and ensure that the 12 sites of struggle identified in that document form the core of the programme of action of the progressive women`s movement.

A working class led women`s movement, guided by these two Charters has an enormous contribution to make in shifting the balance of forces in favour of not just women`s struggle and the struggle for gender equality, but in decisively shaping the NDR to benefit the workers and the poor of our country in general.

To this end the SACP must focus on the twin tasks of fighting patriarchy and building a working class led progressive women`s movement. Our Draft political programme for this congress already analyses the nature and forms of patriarchy. The Central Committee is also of the view that much as the struggle for gender equality is a struggle for both men and women, such a struggle cannot be advanced without a truly progressive women`s movement. This also means that these twin tasks must be firmly incorporated into all our theoretical and programmatic perspectives as well as into all our campaigns.

In short, very few countries in the world have such a rich organizational experience and potential for women`s progressive organization, and this still remains a critical factor in the balance of forces in pursuance of a radical national democratic revolution.

e. The 1996 Class Project

The debate and discussion within our Party of our 2005 Central Committee discussion document indicated general acknowledgement and endorsement of the notion of a “1996 class project”. This descriptive term has never pretended to be a fully-fledged analytic concept, but it sought to describe the hegemony (it has never been an unchallenged or secure hegemony) that was secured over the ANC and our democratic government by a particular class agenda.  In many respects, this reality reflected the impact of the strategic agenda of established monopoly capital on our own movement and our new democratic state. The term “1996 class project” obviously ran the danger of being vulgarized. But it was never our intention to reduce it to a ‘conspiracy` (as some have tried to argue), nor a label to be attached to individuals. While the term might have been vulgarized in some circles, make no mistake, what it was broadly describing was and is real enough.

The existence of such a class agenda should hardly surprise us. It is, in part, the consequence of our negotiated transition being at its core a class compromise, i.e. a deal by which the liberation movement gained access to political power without an immediate and fundamental reconfiguration of class relations in broader society.

The economic programme of the 1996 class project has essentially been to pursue the restoration of capitalist profitability through ‘lowering the cost of doing business for business`, and elevating macro-economic indicators above an industrial policy and developmental programme. The justification for this agenda, when any justification was provided, was that there were supposedly “no alternatives”, and, besides, capitalist growth, so it was argued, would provide the resources for a top-down state delivery. The latter came to be regarded as “development”.

This belief in market-driven growth plus state-managed technocratic “delivery” has seen the fostering of a privileged power axis between emerging (and emerged) capitalists and senior state managers. The internal organizational expression of the 1996 class project has essentially been to demobilize the ANC with key programmes being located largely within government. In addition, the 1996 class project has also sought to marginalize if not dislodge the Tripartite Alliance as the primary vehicle for the transformation of society. In some instances, certainly between 1999 and 2002, attempts were made to provoke the Allies to walk out of the Alliance.

The 1996 class project has also tended to elevate the global balance of forces at the expense of the extent to which the domestic balance of forces gives us space to pursue a more radical developmental agenda.

The CC discussion document correctly noted that this class project was bound to become embroiled in a series of crises – the re-invigorated CST capitalist growth path would reproduce and even deepen the crises of underdevelopment that the state-led delivery programmes were trying to address; the privileged access of emerging (and emerged) capital to the commanding heights of the state would envelop the state in a series of factional divisions, corruption scandals, and succession battles; and the demobilization of the ANC (outside of election time) would mean that many community concerns and aspirations would be left to spontaneous and sometimes misguided popular mobilization.

The coming to pass of these predictions is now there for all to see. As the SACP we are certainly not celebrating. But we do take heart from the fact that, beginning at least with the ANC`s 2005 National General Council, tens of thousands of ANC cadres, and many in the ANC leadership, broadly share our analysis of the problem and of the collective challenges we now face. Apart from the central themes of a developmental state and industrial policy, the ANC`s national policy conference last month, emphasized time and again the critical importance of re-building the ANC as a vibrant, mass-based organization, and as a political center capable of guiding government in broad strategic terms. A key problem for the SACP and alliance over the last several years has been the relative weakness of the ANC itself. It is difficult for the SACP to play its vanguard socialist role within the NDR in the absence of a dynamic ANC. 

One of the most dangerous effects of the “1996 class project” and its tendency to spawn factionalism, often based on patronage networks, has been the emergence of political factions within key state apparatuses. Fortunately, this problem appears not to have reached grave proportions as yet. But it is imperative that the professional integrity of the state, and particularly of sensitive areas like justice, policing and intelligence are not compromised.

It is for this reason that the SACP has called on Parliament and the Inspector General to investigate the origin, status and circumstances of the leaking of a recent Comops-style disinformation document, entitled “Special Browse ‘Mole`”. If this reckless document is, indeed, linked in any way to any state entity then appropriate steps need to be taken. The SACP commits itself to the vigorous defence of the professional integrity of our state organs.

A brief evaluation of the implementation of our 11th Congress Programme of Action

Our organizational report to this Congress will provide a much more detailed analysis and evaluation of progress made in implementing the PoA as adopted by the 11th Congress as well as other campaigns that the SACP has embarked upon since then. The aim of this section of the report is a brief political evaluation of some of this work in order to set the context for the organizational report.

On growth and development strategy

The SACP has waged a multiplicity of campaigns that seek to develop a growth and development strategy aimed at benefiting the workers and the poor of our country. Our primary mode of campaigning engagement with the task of developing a growth and development strategy has been through our financial sector campaign.

Our financial sector campaign has notched up some significant gains since 2002. We reported at our SNC that since our 11th Congress we had held a national financial sector summit in August 2002 which agreed on some far-reaching resolutions on the need to transform the financial sector to meet the needs of the overwhelming majority of our people. One of the results of this Summit was the adoption of a Financial Sector Transformation Charter, though it was only developed by financial capital without engagement with labour and the Financial Sector Campaign Coalition (FSCC).

Nevertheless the Charter Council committed itself to some major changes in the financial sector, including significant commitments to financing low cost housing, and the subsequent establishment of the Umzansi account. Since then there is now also a low-cost insurance product, the passage of the National Credit Act by parliament, and a credit amnesty for all those owing R500-00 or less. In relation to the latter we had demanded a once-off amnesty for all those listed in the credit bureaus, but nevertheless a partial amnesty still represents an important advance towards this goal. It is important that we continue to demand an amnesty for all, as a precondition for liberating millions of our people from imprisonment by these faceless credit bureaus.

Through our financial sector struggles we have also seen the passage of a new Co-operatives Act and the tabling this year of the Co-operative Banks Bill. Though the latter has taken unusually long, it now has finally reached Parliament.

Another important achievement of our financial sector campaign has been the restructuring of the governance of the retirement funds industry, through the separation of the organizations for fund managers and that of (often workers`) trustees in order to strengthen the voice and power of the working class over the investment of their retirement funds. This however remains a major struggle as this has not translated into redirecting major retirement funds` investments in a manner that will benefit the workers and the poor. The SACP still remains with the major task of engaging and mobilizing the trade union movement to have effective control over the investments of their retirement funds in order to create jobs and eradicate poverty. Capital is still resisting investing significant amounts of retirement funds into infrastructural projects that will create jobs and build sustainable livelihoods.

However there are some general lessons we need to learn from our campaigns. The successes of these campaigns have often led, usually through our own demands, to NEDLAC or some other corporatist arrangements, thus requiring much time being devoted to multi-stakeholder engagements. It is often the case that capital, and indeed government, are much better resourced to engage in these multi-lateral forums. We often lose our advantage of mass mobilization.

Our financial sector struggles have revealed in the starkest manner the extent to which there is collaboration between a section of the cadre (including our own) within the state and private capital. The very rejection of a once-off amnesty for all was primarily based on a refusal by this cadre within the state to positively respond to demands by labour and community, instead choosing to succumb to pressure by private capital, especially the monopoly banks, to sabotage our demand. This calls for building working class power in the economy, especially in the financial sector, if we are to even halve unemployment by 2014.

The SACP has continued to support the jobs and poverty campaigns of COSATU and its affiliates on a variety of terrains. We have, on a principled basis, supported many of the (intensifying) working class struggles over the last five years, including the recent public service workers` strike. These are important struggles in the overall thrust to build working class hegemony in society and to transform the current growth path.

Through our 2004 Red October Campaign we also launched the land and agrarian transformation campaign as part of building working class power for a growth and development strategy for the countryside. This campaign achieved one important objective, that of the convening of the National Land Summit which, amongst other things, resolved to do away with the capitalist ‘Willing Buyer, Willing Seller` principle. It is this model that is primarily responsible for holding back acclerated land and agrarian transformation.

As part of this campaign the SACP resolved to lead a process of building People`s Land Committees (PLCs) as the primary motive forces for land and agrarian transformation. There has however been minimal progress on this front, including the on the very urgent task of the organization of farmworkers into the progressive trade union movement and the mobilization of communities living on farms to transform the conditions on the ‘white countryside`.

Through our 2006 Red October Campaign we have also launched an important struggle, mobilizing our communities in the localities for safe, affordable and reliable public transport. Clearly this campaign has struck a chord with millions of our people who have to rely on unsafe, expensive, and hopelessly unreliable public transport. Partly in response to our campaign, government convened an important Public Transport Summit in 2006 at which key decisions were taken, notably the importance of driving integrated rapid public transport systems in our major cities. Using the catalyser of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, nearly R9billion has been set aside for public transport legacy in the hosting cities – this is more than is being spent on stadiums.

The SACP and its alliance partners need to support these initiatives, we need to be vigilant that public money is not wasted on white elephant proposals, like the recent Gauteng monorail fiasco, and we also need to ensure that rural transport and infrastructure receive much greater emphasis.

The increased planned investment into infrastructure by our state owned enterprises must also be principally linked to our overall growth and development strategy. Such a strategy must not only be subjected to the imperatives of ‘lowering the cost of doing business for business` but to the overall industrial policy to transform the current growth path in our country.

Our task is that of actively engaging with the development of an industrial policy, whose foundation must be the thorough transformation of the persisting CST accumulation path dominated by the mining/industrial/financial conglomerates. We are confident that this Congress will discuss this matter thoroughly.

Local Governance as the Centre of Gravity of our Programmes

As part of the realization of this goal the SACP has launched the ‘Know Your Neighbourhood Campaign` to help mobilize our communities. The thrust of all our campaigns has been around local community mobilization, whether on the question of the transformation of the financial sector, land and agrarian transformation, the struggle for safe and affordable public transport or the building of co-operatives. These campaigns, as waged primarily at the level of the locality, have also led to the massive growth in the membership of the SACP since 2002.

It is going to be important for this Congress to carefully reflect on lessons from our KYN Campaign, some of its positive experiences and weaknesses, in order to strengthen it as our primary platform in our local work.

One of the critical challenges we face is that of engaging with and building progressive local economic development strategies, especially the Integrated Development Programmes. Our districts and provinces have generally not adequately engaged with this sphere of struggle and development, notwithstanding a few exemplary instances.

The question of building working class hegemony must find its practical expression in local struggles, and the SACP will need to pay more attention to this sphere. The struggle for contestation of power lies principally in building the SACP and working class power in the locality. This will be the crucial test of the extent to which the working class is able to build power in society as a whole.

It would therefore be very important for this Congress to develop further strategies and concrete programmes on the local development sphere in order to realize the all important objective of building the local sphere as the centre of gravity of our programmes and campaigns. In particular our campaign to build co-operatives is an important dimension in local economic development. It is the locality that builds national power, and it is national power that is located in the locality! Working class power must principally find its expression in the locality and the workplace.

The key challenges of the 12th Congress: Concretising our Medium Term Vision (MTV) as part of our South African Road to Socialism

Our MTV has identified the immediate tasks of the SACP, in our road to socialism, as that of building working class hegemony in all of society, prioritizing the state, the economy, the workplace, the community, ideological and the international as critical terrains of struggle. These terrains of struggle are not silos, but are deeply inter-related much as each one of them has its own distinctive features and challenges. It is therefore important that we do not approach our MTV in a fragmented way.

We have deliberately structured our Draft Political Programme and our Commissions at this Congress to focus on the main pillars of our MTV. The Draft programme has elaborated on some of these pillars, and for the purposes of this Political Report we will focus more on those pillars that are not elaborated in the Draft Political Programme, and do a brief overview on some of the key questions that require debate at this Congress.

For purposes of debate and discussion at this Congress, our Draft Political Programme can roughly be divided into two parts. The first part is made up of the first four overarching chapters: ‘Why Socialism`, ‘Colonialism of a Special Type`, ‘The National Democratic Revolution` and ‘The SACP and Socialism`. We expect delegates in all the commissions to go through these chapters with the aim of enriching them towards a final programme.

The second part of the Draft Political Programme is made up of those chapters that focus on some of the pillars of our MTV. These will be separately discussed in the different commissions.

The SACP and State Power

The key task when considering the SACP and state power is to undertake a thorough analysis of the type of state we have built thus far and the challenge of building working class power in order to construct a national democratic, developmental state.

The central question of any revolution, including the South African national democratic revolution, is the question of state power. Since 1994, while not being the ruling party as such, the SACP has been, amongst other things, a party of governance. Tens of thousands of communists have taken up the challenges of governance, as cabinet ministers, members of legislatures, provincial executives, mayors and councilors, as officials and workers throughout the public service, including the armed forces and in the safety and security institutions. Communists have not stood on the side-lines criticizing, we have accepted our full responsibilities for building an effective democratic state and progressive governance.

In the first three rounds of national democratic elections and the local government elections, the SACP has chosen to campaign on the basis of single ANC electoral lists. The SACP has never given the ANC a simple blank cheque. We have always played an active role in shaping the ANC election manifestos, and we have also endeavoured to assert an independent SACP profile in the course of these electoral campaigns. The priority, however, has been to ensure an overwhelming ANC majority.

In the course of these elections, thousands of SACP members, endorsed by branch-up ANC-led nominations processes, have been elected into national, provincial legislatures and local councils.

The question arises – has the Party as an independent organization benefited fully from this large number of SACP elected representatives serving under an ANC caucus discipline? Have elected communists consistently upheld the values and policies of the Party, albeit within the context of a broader ANC discipline? If we continue with the same general approach to elections, how do we ensure a much greater answerability of communists in elected positions, without micro-managing them?

The modalities of the SACP`s participation in elections are not a matter of timeless principle. As an independent political party, the SACP has every right to contest elections in its own right – should it so choose.

The 2005 SACP Special National Congress established a Central Committee Commission to research this whole area and to make recommendations to this Congress. The CC Commission tabled its report to the CC earlier this year. Amongst other things it noted that, internationally, capitalist dominated societies are an extremely unfavourable electoral terrain for Communist Parties. There is not a single example of a Communist Party, on its own, winning national elections within a capitalist society – let alone using such a breakthrough as the platform to advance a socialist transformation.

The discussion around parliamentary elections, also led the Commission to make several critical observations about South Africa`s parliament. At present it is marginalized and weak, relative to executive and judicial powers. This has led the Party to recommend a number of measures that would help to strengthen parliament and its prestige – including an end to floor crossing, and the passing of legislation to enable parliament to amend money bills.

The CC Commission report also noted the continuous attempts by certain circles with close ties to big capital in South Africa to goad (and even sometimes to flatter) the SACP into pursuing an independent electoral path. These are ideologues who reduce politics to the market-place of election-day choice. Those who were nowhere to be seen during decades of bitter struggle now preach to the SACP about having the “courage to stand on its own” and to cut the “apron strings with the ANC”. They are happy to forget (perhaps they don`t even know) that thousands of communists were persecuted, exiled, jailed, even executed for helping to build the ANC into the formidable, popular force it is today. That was part of our central strategy going all the way back, as we have noted, to 1928.

Of course, the fact that these strategic opponents are keen that we should contest elections on our own does not necessarily mean that we should forego the option if it is the timely and correct decision, from the point of view of advancing the NDR, the South African road to socialism. However, their enthusiasm should at least set off some warning bells.

Considering all of this, the CC in receiving and debating the Commission report made the following observations. The debate about SACP electoral options has been a healthy and useful debate. Amongst other things it has already served to dynamise communist collectives in some of the legislatures, helping comrades to break out of a certain parliamentary routinism. The CC also noted that the SACP is not, and should never become, a narrowly electoralist formation. State power is not reducible to elections and electoral victories. Working class hegemony in the state has to be built across a wide front of engagements and not just periodically at election time. There is no simplistic parliamentary path to socialism, which is not to say that parliaments are irrelevant.

The CC also noted that whatever the modalities of SACP participation in elections we are not intending to break our strategic Alliance. This is important to assert, because media commentators frequently conflate an independent SACP election campaign with a breaking of the Alliance. Whether this would be the material effect of such a decision regardless of our intentions is another matter, and another issue that needs sober assessment.

The CC recommended to this National Congress that no binding decision should be taken at this point in time concerning the exact modality of the SACP`s future participation in elections. In any case, this is a tactical, not a principled or strategic matter, and the national situation remains fluid.

Finally, the CC underlined that no-one in the SACP is arguing for the preservation of the status quo. The ANC, itself, and parliament have been considerably marginalized by the executive. This must change. The alliance is not functioning optimally. This must change. Too many elected communists seem to forget that they are communists when they sit in legislatures and local councils. This must change.

The SACP and the Economy

The key question in the transformation of our economy is that of seeking to build an economy that breaks its CST character and take it out of its dependent-development path. The task is that of an economy that challenges and transforms the dominant power of the mining-energy-finance monopoly capital.

In order to adequately tackle the above challenge it is also important to clearly tease out the key features of the current South African economy and its growth path, including the class, national and gender features of this economy.

A matter that we have raised robustly is that of how do we transform our economy for the benefit of the workers and the poor. Despite its higher growth levels, our economy continues to benefit a few, and the model of BEE continues to be elitist and not benefiting the overwhelming majority of our people. What should constitute a truly broad based BEE, and what should be its key features? How do we build an economy that benefits ordinary women and centrally incorporating the transformation of gender relations in the economy? How do we build working class hegemony in the economy?

The SACP and the Workplace

The SACP has welcomed many of the positive changes and developments on the post 1994 workplace, including progressive labour laws and policies aimed at transforming the apartheid workplace.

However, despite these positive developments CST patterns persist, both at managerial and working class levels. The South African workplace continues to be radically restructured through retrenchments, casualisation, outsourcing in a manner that has had significant impact on the unity and cohesion of the working class.

A critical challenge for the SACP in this regard is to clearly define its role in relation to the trade union movement as a whole, particularly with COSATU, our strategic ally, but also in relation to the rest of the trade union movement. The organized working class constitutes our most immediate constituency and a leading detachment in the working class as a whole.

Congress also has the task of reflecting on our experiences, strengths and weaknesses in building workplace units. SACP workplace units are critical in supporting struggles for the transformation of the workplace, and in the broader struggles for economic transformation. Such workplace units also need to root some of our campaigns directly amongst workers, especially those relating to the transformation of the financial sector and in the struggle for workers to have more say over the investment of their retirement funds.

The passage of the Co-operative Banks Bill will potentially transform the banking landscape in our country. The primary motive force in building a dynamic co-operative banking system in our country are employed workers, and therefore SACP workplace units will have to play a critical role in building a co-operative banking movement amongst the workers, and to liberate the workers from the stranglehold of omashonisa.

The organization of marginalized workers remains a priority task in building working class power. We have made some efforts in using our land and agrarian campaign as a bridgehead towards the organization of farmworkers in particular. We need to intensify this work, including defining the role of the SACP in the organization of domestic workers and the army of casualised, usually rightless, sections of the working class.

The SACP and our Communities

The SACP needs to deepen its work amongst our communities, as part of building working class hegemony and transforming the CST community landscape we inherited from the apartheid regime. Particular focus should be paid to black communities, with special mobilisational and campaigning methods for the townships, the former Bantustans and communities living on white farms.

A particular area that cries out for working class leadership are the civic and residents organizations. The problems besetting SANCO are a major challenge for the Alliance as a whole. Congress will have to focus on this question and emerge with clear proposals on the matter.

The SACP and ideological struggles

The South African state, struggles in the economy, the workplace, in our communities and indeed in the national democratic revolution as whole and the struggle for socialism, are all ideologically contested realities. Much as all these terrains of struggle, in which the working class seeks to build its hegemony, are distinct terrains of struggle, they are at the same time deeply interrelated. No one site of struggle for building working class power can be understood in isolation from one another – they are all terrains for

deepening, advancing and consolidating a single, albeit contested, working class led national democratic revolution – our South  African road to socialism.

One key factor that bind, and cuts across, all these terrains of struggle, is ideological contestation or the ideological struggle.  Much as Marx and Engels correctly said that the ruling ideas in any society are those of the ruling class, because the ruling class (understood in this instance as the capitalist class) owns most of the means of communication, this is not an uncontested reality. In other words, much as the history of the hitherto existing society is a history of class struggle, so it is simultaneously a history of ideological struggle between the main contending class forces. That it is true that the ruling ideas in society are those of the ruling class, does not mean that there is no (class) ideological contestation in society. Put differently, that the ruling ideas in society are those of the ruling class is both a ‘fixed`, but also a contested reality.

The above qualifications of Marx and Engels` conception of ideology are also to be found in their own works. It is not consciousness (thoughts, ideas or reasoning) that shapes material conditions, but material conditions that shape consciousness. What this means is that the different (class) location of the bourgeoisie and the working class in relation to ownership of the means of production is of fundamental importance in shaping the thinking of each of these classes (as individual members and collectively).

The above however does not mean that this is always the case, especially in relation to those who do not own the means of communicating ideas. It is for this reason that the workers and the poor can (and actually have) supported ideas, including very reactionary and anti-working class ideas, that are not in accordance with their material reality. That is why we talk about ideological contestation, thus validating Marx and Engels` views that those who control the means of communicating ideas, unless vigorously contested on this terrain, are likely to hold sway in the end.

What the above points to is the fact that for the working class to build its hegemony, it is not enough for it to be organizationally powerful, its ideas must progressively become the dominant ideas in society.

It is important to point out that ideological struggle is one of the most complicated of struggles, as it is not just fought out through formal, and actual ownership of means of communication (newspapers, radio, television, etc), but it is a struggle fought daily, especially in the family in the everyday processes of production and reproduction. For instance males from different class backgrounds can be united on the basis of their common partriarchal beliefs (as part of their ‘culture`) thus translating into common ideological platforms, usually in favour of bourgeois ideas. This would especially be the case where patriarchy has been co-opted by the bourgeoisie and the capitalist system or where the capitalist system gives hope to patriarchy as a means to a ‘better life`. ‘Lumpen patriarchy` (which we describe in our draft programme) is, ironically, particularly susceptible to this.

Much as ideological struggles are fought on a wide variety of levels, it is important to identify some of the major ideological terrains and ‘instruments` where the working class will have to wage its ideological struggle, particularly in our South African conditions:

1. The bourgeois, commercial media – This constitutes one of the most powerful and a formidable weapon in the hands of the capitalist class, as it is usually owned by the bourgeoisie. Nevertheless it is a terrain that should not be left uncontested, particularly because this media, given the overwhelming reality of poverty, with workers and the poor being a majority, it has to genuflect to these interests. It is this space that needs to be maximally exploited, consistently and at all times, especially for that part of bourgeois-controlled media that is targeting the working class. Part of the difficulty is that this bourgeois-owned, but working class directed media, tends towards ‘tabloidisation`, thus privileging gossip (extremely attractive to the working class audiences) over political issues that affect the workers and the poor. A critical challenge here is how do we maximally use the resources in the hands of working class formations to create our own public media
2. The public broadcaster – This is arguably the most powerful media in South African society, because of its size and reach, particularly SABC radio. Because it is a public broadcaster, that seeks to engage with the overwhelming majority of our people, it is susceptible to working class influence, especially radio. This is an area that has both limitations but at the same time huge possibilities for the working class. How do we do this?
3. Community radio stations – This media sector serves millions of South Africans, despite the fact that it is facing severe constraints and difficulties. This is an area that our party has not paid adequate attention to, despite its potential and general sympathy towards the workers and the poor as its primary constituency. For instance it is estimated that there are more than 4000 community radio stations that reach out to our own (actual and potential) constituency
4. The arts and culture spheres – South Africa has one of the strongest music and other arts and cultural spheres popular with the overwhelming majority of our people. In music for instance both kwaito (with the youth) and gospel (both youth and adults) genres are hugely popular with our people. For understandable reasons, the SACP has not adequately addressed this issue, as a critical platform for ideological contestation. In the 1980s, this sphere played a very critical role in the struggle against apartheid, but it has now been somewhat left on its own without a strategic approach to it
5. Internal SACP and working class media – The collective media run and controlled by the SACP and the trade union movement is very significant, yet there is no collective approach of how to maximize the impact of this. In the case of the SACP, and to a lesser extent with the trade union movement, problems of resources and capacity for production and distribution are major challenges. How do we overcome this in order to maximally make use of this as an effective weapon in working class ideological struggles?
6. Religious organizations – Through our SACP campaigns we have reached out and entered into some alliances with religious organizations, especially the indigenous churches. Our major campaigns on the financial sector, land and agrarian transformation, public transport, etc attract a lot of attention and are popular with the religious sector. The problem is that we have not maximized this, given the religious sector`s largely pro poor stance and its social base.  In our context, therefore, the religious sector is an important site of power and influence. Even on the cultural side, religious music is by far the most popular music with the workers and the poor of our country.
7. The family as a site of ideological struggle – The family has generally been contested by conservative forces as a site for the reproduction of some of the most backward and authoritarian values. Yet this is one of the most important sites of ideological contestation. Some of the key questions here are how do we use our ‘Know Your Neighbourhood Campaign` as well as all of our other campaigns to reach out to engage and transform this terrain for progressive socialist values. For example, how do we use the popularity of the SACP and its closeness with households in places like Khutsong as part of ideological contestation and generally strengthening all our campaigns.
8. The SACP campaigns – Many of our campaigns have a popular resonance with the overwhelming majority of our working class and poor communities. How do we use these campaigns as important sites of ideological struggles in order to counter the ideas propagated by tabloids and ideas in the broader commercial media. For instance how do we engage with co-operatives like stokvels, burial societies and other forms of co-operative activity that are so well entrenched in the so-called ‘second economy` to wage an effective working class ideological struggle!
9. Education as an ideological state apparatus and a site of ideological struggles – One of the most critical arenas for ideological struggle is the educational arena. In any society formal educational institutions shape the values and the broader ideological outlook of that society. In our case the educational terrain was one of the major sites of struggle against apartheid. In fact the 1976 uprisings, apart from mobilizing the youth against the apartheid regime also underlined the critical importance of this site as a primary arena for ideological struggles. Going forward it is very important that the SACP engages with the ideological content of the curricula and its importance in advancing perspectives in line with the interests of the workers and the poor. Of critical importance in this regard is the role of educators and the linkages between the SACP and the trade union movement on the educational front. For instance the largest teacher union is part of COSATU and has strong linkages with the SACP. This cadre of educators is an important layer of the working class and a building bloc for the transformation of education and its curricula in favour of the interests of the workers and the poor. The SACP also needs to learn from, and strengthen the work done by, our YCL in this regard. The YCL has led important struggle for the transformation of education on all fronts.
10. Cadre development – Perhaps the most critical factor on the terrain of ideological struggle is that of deepening our cadre development programmes. Cadre development is a dialectical combination between theory and practice. Cadre development in the first instance requires that we educate all our members in the theory of Marxism-Leninism. But theory alone is not adequate as we should ensure that a critical component of cadre development must be the involvement of our cadres in the daily struggles and life of the SACP and its campaigns. We also need to deepen the joint political schools between the SACP and the various COSATU affiliates. These joint schools serve the dual purpose of rooting the SACP amongst organized workers as well as deepening Marxist-Leninist education amongst the workers as well as using these as a further recruiting ground for the SACP within this very important layer of the working class.

All of the above are an illustration of some of the key terrains of ideological struggle that the SACP and the working class need to engage systematically in order to intensify the struggle for the ideological hegemony of the working class. Much as the main commercial media, a public broadcaster dependent on capitalist advertising and other sites of ideological struggle are susceptible to the influence of bourgeois ideas, there is huge scope for counter-hegemonic working class ideological struggles, provided we are able to have effective co-ordination in these spheres within the overall objectives of our Medium Term Vision. The challenge is the development of an overarching SACP-led working class struggle to wage an effective ideological struggle in all the terrains of power and influence

The SACP and the international struggles

Our Party has since its formation been part of a broader international family of the communist movement and other progressive formations. Our formation was directly an offshoot of the growth of the international communist movement inspired by the October Revolution in 1917. The SACP, as the oldest communist party in the continent and currently the strongest, has always occupied a special place in the international communist and left progressive forces.

Since the 1994 democratic breakthrough our Party has continued to maintain extensive international linkages and has been a major source for socialist, left-wing analyses of the South African revolution and its transition to democracy. Since the 11th Congress our international work has continued to expand.

Our international strategy since just before the 11th Congress has been two-pronged. On the one hand, we had identified solidarity work in specific countries and regions, with our focus on solidarity with the Cuban revolution, the Palestinian struggle, the struggle for democracy in Swaziland, and the independence struggle of the Saharawi people. Later, the Zimbabwean crisis became an important area of focus.

We have done extensive work in support and solidarity in these five focus areas, though the work tends to be uneven and not as sustained as we would like it to be. A key weakness on this front has been a lack of effective Alliance co-ordination on these issues.

The other leg of our international work has been ongoing bilateral relations with fraternal parties, mainly the Chinese and the Cubans. We have also participated in some important multi-lateral forums like the European Left Forum, the Sao Paulo Forum and the multi-lateral consultations facilitated by the Communist Party of Greece. But this part of our work is always ‘demand driven`, rather than through a strategic approach and engagement within the framework of our international objectives.

A consistently glaring weakness has been our work on the African continent, despite huge expectations from a number of left forces on the continent. This is also despite the fact that our country is playing an important and very critical role in the region.

We have also done some work with the trade union movement in the region, especially around activities organised by COSATU and/or with some of its affiliates. We can however still do a lot more work on this front through a systematic engagement with regional/continental trade union activities taking place in South Africa.

The left challenges in Southern Africa and the continent and the possible role of the SACP

Much as our analysis here aims to make some general observations, we are aware that each African (and Southern African) country has its own unique features and the manner in which some of these general features express themselves varies from country to country. We are, however, convinced that there are many common patterns that need to be properly analysed and understood.

What are the tasks of former liberation movements now in power, and what is and what should be their relationship to their national liberation allies, especially the trade union movement and mass organizations? One of the key problems in Zimbabwe for instance is that ZANU-PF has lost much of the support and certainly its hegemony over most of the main motive forces of any national liberation struggle, especially the workers and progressive intellectuals and middle strata. It has also lost whatever rural base it had in Matabeleland.

Indeed, one of the first ‘casualties` in post-independence Southern Africa, with the (partial but significant) exception of South Africa, is the mass movement. If truth were told there is not much of a mass movement to speak of in our wider region.

What seems to have been a pattern is that the mass movement, and the degree to which a mass movement existed prior to independence also varied considerably, is either incorporated into the state, or shrinks into NGOs, often funded by Western donors and increasingly positioning itself as oppositionist.

There seems to be a general pattern that there is a rapid decline of progressive and vibrant mass movements (where these existed) after independence. Such movements sometimes re-emerge in response to repression post-independence and decline again once there is a change of government, after electoral defeat of unpopular post-liberation governments (eg Zambia, or Kenya). Perhaps the lesson out of this is the tendency to channel all the mass energies of such movements narrowly into an electoral effort, with a singular focus on an electoral victory or, for that matter, an ‘electoral regime change`, at the expense of sustained mass activism on the ground even after such elections.

Perhaps the only significant mass organisations post-independence are trade unions. It is for this reason that any independent mass activity or resistance to unpopular governments tends to arise from, or be led by, the trade union movement. This has sometimes led to the argument, found in sections of a number of former liberation movements in our region, that the trade union movement is being used by imperialism to roll back the gains of liberation.

The Chiluba experience in Zambia is often held up as the “paradigm” case. Here, the trade union movement was used as a mass base to defeat President Kaunda, but subsequently, the Chiluba government pursued a heavy neo-liberal agenda and ran a corrupt administration. Of course, the Chiluba experience represents one (the worst) potential trajectory of a trade union movement being used as a mass base for political engagement post-independence. It certainly shows that a trade union movement can be hijacked towards an anti-working class agenda, and used for narrow electoralist objectives to satisfy the personal ambitions of some of its (former) leaders, rolling back the gains made after independence. It is the responsibility of the left and the working class movement in the region to guard against this kind of danger. But it is certainly not the only potential trajectory. Progressive forces need constantly to engage constructively with the trade union movement. Painstaking revolutionary work amongst the workers is essential.

The tensions between post-independence governments and trade unions also have their roots in economic policy decisions. During the 1980s and the 1990s, virtually all Southern African governments were pursuing some form or another of economic structural adjustment programme (ESAPs). These ESAPs were characterised by large scale privatisation of state assets, economic liberalisation and the rolling back of social programmes aimed at the poor. This led to large-scale destruction of jobs and sustainable livelihoods. These programmes were a wholesale failure, and it was the workers and the poor that suffered the most, thus leading to resistance from, amongst others, trade unions. It is for instance these developments that are leading to the large migration to South Africa and the increasing regionalisation of our own workforce.

A related problem has been that the domestic elites have zealously driven and benefited enormously from the ESAPs at the direct expense of the workers and the poor. This has seen the consolidation of a bureaucratic bourgeoisie, controlling the levers of state and the meagre economic resources in these countries.

Whilst not underestimating the extent to which imperialism can (and actually does) engineer or exploit the fallout between former liberation movements and the main motive forces of the revolution, the challenge is for former liberation movements to frankly examine themselves as well. It is wrong to simply blame trade unions as useful tools in the hands of imperialism, without thoroughly examining the mistakes of the former liberation movements now in government. The key challenge and lesson from all of this is the role that liberation movements should be playing in mobilising the main motive forces for reconstruction and development post-independence.

Another important lesson out of this is that state power not buttressed by mass power is vulnerable. Many Southern African governments could not resist the structural adjustment programmes partly because there was no mobilised mass force on the ground to defend whatever gains had been made immediately after independence. This should be a warning of the dangers of bureaucratisation of former liberation movements, and their growing distance from their mass base and main motive forces for transformation. It is precisely this phenomenon that strengthens the hand of imperialism, and not the trade union movement as is sometimes claimed. It is a weakened movement, with a bureaucratised state that isolates and weakens the capacity of many governments to resist imperialist impositions.

It is for all the above reasons that working class and progressive forces in the region need to deepen worker and working class solidarity to defend and advance thorough-going democratisation, worker rights, human rights and pro-poor policies thereby safeguarding and advancing the achievements of the national liberation movements. This Congress will have to take forward this discussion by defining our role in the region and the continent.

Towards a strategic approach to our international relations

In the light of our experiences since the 1994 democratic breakthrough, the changing global terrain and some of the experiences outlined above, the Central Committee would like to propose to this Congress the following as our strategic and programmatic approach to our international work as part of our Medium Term Vision:

Our main strategic objective in our international relations should be to contribute towards building a left, socialist movement and solidarity networks in Southern Africa, Africa and the developing world, in that order of priority. The aim of such a movement should immediately be to fight neo-liberalism, US unilateralism, promote world peace and advance the struggle for building developmental states with and for workers and the poor as a platform to build a momentum towards and capacity for socialism.

Such a strategic approach should not mean that we abandon our immediate priority areas for mobilisation and solidarity (Zimbabwe, Palestine, Saharawi, Cuba and Swaziland), but that from now onwards this work must be firmly located within the main strategic objective of our international work.

Within the broader context of our focus on the developing world, it is important that we also prioritise engagements with the communist parties of China, India and Brazil, as countries that are of strategic importance for both our country and in the developing world as a whole.

Guided by this strategic objective we should not downgrade or abandon fraternal relations with parties and progressive movements in the developed world. These are important in the advancement of our overall strategic objective as well as deepening working class and progressive solidarity throughout the whole world.

However, the hallmark of our international work should be activist-based international solidarity and networks that build upon bilateral and multi-lateral engagements.

Strengthening the organizational and mobilisation vehicles to advance and deepen a socialist oriented national democratic revolution

The tasks this Congress has set for itself require that as a critical component of our discussions we frankly and honestly assess the kind of SACP and cadre we need, including the question of who is supposed to be an SACP member, as well as the kind of Alliance (individually and collectively) that we need.

Strengthening the SACP structures and capacity

We have said this is the SACP`s 12th Congress, it is indeed our Congress. It is therefore important that we frankly, honestly but constructively debate our own strengths, weaknesses and challenges. We must do this not in a negative and destructive manner, but in order to correct weaknesses.

Our Party`s growth since our 11th Congress has grown significantly. The reason for this is that it is a campaigning party, both through its own campaigns, but also through principled support it has given to working class and other progressive struggles by ordinary people in our country. This is a strength that we must build upon, and for this Congress to thoroughly discuss how we strengthen these campaigns. The MTV provides an even better strategic and programmatic framework within which to deepen these campaigns.

A key challenge for this Congress is for the SACP to thoroughly examine itself on whether the manner it is structured is in line with building a vanguard party, rooted in the working class and in all the sites of power and terrains of struggle as identified by the MTV. For instance for the SACP to lead the struggle to build working class hegemony in the state how should it seek to locate itself within, and relate effectively to, state structures. Amongst other things we had taken resolutions sometime in the 1990s to build parliamentary discussion forums (PDF), in the three spheres of government, as well as experimented with some SACP workplace units in the state. Frankly, with very few exceptions we have not succeeded in doing this. This Congress will have to evaluate this experience and refocus the SACP on these important tasks.

In the past we have also taken many resolutions on the accountability of communists to the SACP, irrespective of where they are deployed or located. We have given ourselves a ‘black cheque` for communists to even pursue policies that are in direct conflict with party programmes, directives and policies. This must come to an end. In the past we have argued that where there is a policy clash between our allies and the SACP, we must not then blame individuals pursuing anti-SACP policies in their areas of deployment but we must seek to deal with these through Alliance structures. Whilst this is correct and in line with our long-standing practices for communists to loyally implement decisions of the other structures they work in, but is this adequate in the current circumstances? Congress will have to answer this question decisively. This must include guidelines on how communists, wherever they are located, integrate the MTV and party campaigns in their work.

It is however inadequate to simply expect of our cadres to be accountable and answerable to our structures, if the SACP itself does not build capacity to support and effectively interact with all our cadres in the different sites and terrains of struggle. This requires building all sorts of capacity within our Party, including functioning and campaigning SACP structures and policy capacity. The latter in particular requires that we strengthen our own think-tanks, like the Chris Hani Institute, but also creatively access other capacity located in academic institutions, NGOs, policy think-tanks and other capacity in the hands of our cadres in their various sites of deployment. This is what the MTV demands if we are to realize its objectives. How do we do all these things?

Our perennial weakness is that of lack of financial resources. It is clear that if we are to drive our MTV we need to drastically improve our methods of raising adequate financial resources. The tendency in our structures so far is that of leaving this task to the secretaries and to a certain extent the treasurers. It is however also important that we create proper accountability measures when it comes to fundraising and handling of the Party`s financial resources.

The capitalist world and petty accumulation for instance have tended to be very tempting even for some of our own cadres. We should make absolutely sure that resources that are raised in the name of the SACP, all find their way into the SACP! If some of our own comrades decide to enter the capitalist world, they should be open about it, and not to use the Party for such purposes. Congress will have to discuss this matter. For instance we were the first political party in this country to come out and demand of its members, especially the leadership collectives at all levels, to declare their interests. We are afraid to report that this has been done by very, very few comrades. How do we enforce this decision?

In order to build a Party capable of driving our MTV, it is also important to thoroughly discuss a whole range of issues relating to the internal functioning of the SACP. These are issues relating to inner-party democracy, democratic centralism, loyalty to the SACP, preserving the unity of the party at all times, and discipline, indeed iron discipline. We are raising all these issues together because they are deeply interrelated in the functioning of the Party, and there is a creeping tendency within our ranks to want to emphasise one or some at the expense of the others.

For instance our Party does indeed believe and practice inner party democracy. There is no party cadre who is prevented from making her/his point of view in our structures. This is a practice we must foster in order to strengthen inner party democracy. BUT, views and opinions must be made in a constructive manner, respecting the principle of democratic centralism, with the aim preserving the unity of the Party and in a disciplined and loyal manner. Inner party democracy does not mean ill-discipline, undermining the collective decisions of our structures, and recklessly act in a manner that divides and embarrass the SACP.

But the converse is also true, loyalty to the Party, democratic centralism and the imperative of maintaining Party unity must not be used to suppress legitimate expression of different views within the Party or to sideline comrades.

This Congress must however reaffirm the primary principles of democratic centralism. This means that there must be free debate and flow of ideas inside the Party, but once decisions have been taken all members are bound to implement those decisions. This includes loyal implementation of these decisions by all, including those who might have argued against such decisions before they were taken. No-one should use the excuse of inner party democracy to deliberately go against and undermine decisions that have been collectively taken by our structures. Such actions are not a reflection of inner party democracy, but acts of ill-discipline.

Democratic centralism also means that decisions of higher structures take precedence over, and are binding to, lower structures. But this is not an imposition, and that is why senior representatives from lower structures are always represented ‘ex-officio` in higher structures, as part of ensuring inner party democracy as well as ensuring lower structures do have input into higher structures!

Another critical principle in building a cohesive SACP is that we must at all times strive to resolve political problems and differences POLITICALLY. But this should not mean that acts of ill-discipline must not be dealt with swiftly and through our internal disciplinary methods. Otherwise failure to do this where it is required is to treat disciplinary processes as if they are not part of our political methods to maintain unity and cohesion in the organization.

A new tendency in our party that we need to fight by all means is that of leaking internal party matters into the media or using the media to argue for things that have either been defeated inside the party or never raised at all in the first instance. Bourgeois media can never be allowed to be the terrain on which we discuss internal party matters or used for grandstanding usually against decisions collectively taken by our structures. Use of the media as substitute for internal debate can never at any time be claimed to be advancing inner party democracy. But in order to defeat this we need to continuously inculcate the morality of our Party values and principles; to serve the party loyally and preserve its unity at all times.

The ANC

The party remains committed to our decades long alliance with the African National Congress, because we believe that during this phase of the NDR our Alliance still remains relevant and of absolute importance. Whilst the Party believes that our Alliance must continue to be headed by the ANC, but its principal (class) motive force must be the working class.

Fortunately we are gathered at this Congress only after 10 days since the highly successful ANC Policy Conference. We believe that this Policy Conference has set a firm ground for rebuilding a campaigning, grassroots driven Alliance.

We do not want to dwell much on this question as we have already referred to some key aspects of the relationship between the SACP and the ANC, extensively in our 2006 CC Discussion document, and earlier in this political report. Rather it is important to pose some of the questions that this Congress must discuss. These include what kind of ANC we would like to see emerging out of its 52nd National Congress? What is the role of the SACP in strengthening a dynamic and campaigning ANC? What role do we have in ensuring an ANC that keeps and deepen its working class bias?

Of course in answering these and other questions it is going to be important to engage with the very progressive positions that have emerged from the recent ANC Policy Conference.

The SACP and COSATU

The one enduring feature of our Alliance has been the close and growing relationship between our Party and COSATU. Together with this giant trade union federation we have together fought many struggles, to advance the interests of the working class in our country. We have also understood and respected the respective roles of each formation  and the deep interconnectedness of our struggles as part of building working class power in society. We have sought to influence each other, whilst deeply respecting the independence of each formation. COSATU has accepted and respected the role of the SACP as the political vanguard of South Africa`s working, and the SACP has respected the role of COSATU as the leading organizing detachment of South Africa`s working class.

Our Congress also takes place in the wake of Cosatu`s 9th Congress in September last year; a Congress that adopted some of the most militant resolutions since the 1994 democratic breakthrough.

Over the last five years COSATU has deepened its jobs and poverty campaign and the SACP has fought side by side with COSATU and its affiliates in many of its other important struggles. During the last five years we have seen intensified COSATU-led workers` struggles including the marathon strike by workers in the security industry and the recent public service workers` strike.

However we should not romanticize our relationship with COSATU, instead we should at all times seek to deepen this relationship, identify common challenges and tasks and continue to mobilize the workers of our country for a socialist-oriented national democratic revolution as part of the struggle to secure a socialist South Africa.

Over the past five years we have held two critical bilaterals with COSATU, one of which undertook and extensive collective analysis of the first decade of our freedom. Our joint conclusion from this bilateral was that much as our country`s democracy has notched many important victories and advances, in economic terms the single biggest beneficiary from our democracy has been the white capitalist class. It was this assessment that partly inspired our own MTV and COSATU`s 2015 plan, for us to jointly struggle to make the second decade of our freedom, a decade for the workers and the poor.

Earlier this year we also held an extremely fruitful bilateral in which we agreed that the primary task facing our two formations is that of harmonizing the MTV and 2015 without at the same time collapsing the one into the other. It is the concretization of this bilateral understanding that this Congress will also have to discuss.

We have also undertaken under concrete joint activities with COSATU over the last five years. One of these has been the establishment of the Chris Hani Institute as the primary think-tank of the working class going into the future. We however still remain with the challenge of properly resourcing this important working class vehicle, which has nevertheless become an important platform for some of the left debates both within and outside our Alliance.

The SACP and COSATU have also held a number of joint political education activities, including together with a number of its affiliates. These joint political schools have contributed immensely in consolidating revolutionary perspectives within the ranks of the working class. In addition COSATU and its affiliates has provided many important resources, without any strings attached, to the many programmes and campaigns of the SACP.

Our relationship with COSATU is indeed a strategic relationship, and this Congress will have to discuss how we further deepen this relationship, as it is clearly crucial in building working class hegemony in society and securing a transition to socialism in our country.

We however still have outstanding challenges of how to better harmonise our respective campaigns, especially the financial sector campaign on how we struggle for workers` retirement funds to be used to advance our growth and developmental goals.

One of the key outstanding challenges that confront the SACP and COSATU is that of intensifying the struggle to build a single federation in our country. The recent strike by public service workers should perhaps be reflected upon by this Congress from the standpoint of the potential it provides towards building this single federation. Indeed over the last five years there are many other working class struggles in which there has been co-operation between COSATU and non-COSATU unions. It is the primary task of our Party to tease out the appropriate lessons from these struggles and co-operation.

Despite the media offensive to try and project the public service workers` strike as having disintergrated and a failure, this strike notched a number of important victories. Firstly, it was the longest strike by public service workers ever in the history of our country. Nobody had thought that these workers could sustain a strike for longer than three days. Secondly this strike cemented an unprecedented co-operation of public service workers across racial and occupational lines. Thirdly, it placed at the centre of the debates the kind of developmental state we need and therefore the kind of public service we should build, together with the salaries, wages and conditions of service that should characterize a public service for a developmental state oriented towards meeting the needs of the workers and the poor and overcome the dependent-development path we have been talking about.

The other most important achievement of the above strike is that of highlighting the extent to which we have failed to bridge the wage gap in the public service. An added achievement was the capacity of COSATU public sector unions to lead a united action of all public service workers. The success of the strike also lies in the fact that for the first time since 1999 government has gone beyond its inflation-targetting related limits of not considering increases above 6%. This is a further platform to critique and correct government`s macro-economic policies that are not linked to the developmental challenges facing the neo-CST society that we have today in our country.

All the above are elements upon which we should seek to build broader working class unity, as an essential platform to build working class hegemony in society and building a developmental state. Therefore a key question for this Congress is what are the tasks of the SACP in relation to all these challenges posed by the intensified working class struggles over the last five years?

SANCO

One of the most serious setbacks to the consolidation of the national democratic revolution and the building of working class hegemony in our communities has been the very glaring weaknesses and debilitating infighting within this organization.

The Tripartite Alliance has formed a task team to try and assist this organization to rebuild itself in order to effectively represent the civic interests of our communities, which are predominantly poor and working class. But we also need to discuss at this Congress, on whether the interests of a progressive civic movement are best served by a national civic structure that is part of the Alliance or should it become part of the broader democratic movement. As highlighted above, we will also have to discuss what kind of civic or residents` organizations do we need and what should be the role of the Tripartite Alliance in this regard.

The relationship between the SACP and the Young Communist League (YCL)

As we have noted above, the SACP`s 11th Congress could have made a better decision than to relaunch the YCL, 52 years after it had been banned together with the CPSA in 1950. We can proudly say that indeed, as Cde Vavi demanded and the relaunch congress of the YCL, it has brought some fresh air into the politics of progressive youth in our country.

There have however been tensions between the SACP and the YCL in some provinces, and misunderstanding sometimes at national level. I do not want to go over these, except that the last analysis of this relationship by the National Secretary of the YCL, Cde Buti Manamela, in the latest ‘Bottom Line` edition, does give some insights into aspects of this relationship, at least from the standpoint of the YCL itself.

The tensions that we have seen in some instances between some of the SACP and YCL structures were partly to be expected, given the fact that it is a ‘new` experiences for the overwhelming majority of the membership of the ANC, as we have not had a YCL for more than 50 years. The necessary dynamism of the youth in itself can sometime produce some irritations from sections of the SACP.

Rather we need to use this Congress to reflect on the 4 years of the existence of the YCL, and through this seek to define how the SACP sees the role of the YCL, and its relationship to the SACP structures. Of course there is no doubt that the YCL is our Youth Wing that is guided by the policies, programmes, perspectives and resolutions of the SACP. But at the same time we should not throttle the YCL`s own initiatives as this would kill the organization. The task is what is the appropriate balance between the two?

We have structured our agenda for Congress such that we are able to reflect on this matter, not just in abstract but concretely within the context of our MTV.

The Tripartite Alliance

Throughout this political report, and to a certain extent in our Draft Political Programme, we have raised the question of the centrality of our Alliance in the current phase of the national democratic revolution. But at the same time we have warned that we should avoid the dangers of either mythologizing the alliance or turning it into a museum, both incapable of confronting the challenges facing our NDR in the current period.

Our alliance has been incredibly weakened since the adoption of GEAR in 1996, as most of our energies have been spent on disagreements rather than on a common programme. Our Alliance has tended to function better during elections as proven by the two election campaigns we have been involved in since our 11th Congress in 2002.

We should welcome and further engage with the ANC Policy Conference resolutions that the question of the Allies` relationship to governance needs to be debated and reviewed. Our challenge is not to wait for the ANC to define these, but for this Congress to develop, within the overall context of the SACP`s relation to state power, concrete proposals in this regard.

Since our Special National Congress we have correctly and forcefully argued that our Alliance needs a fundamental reconfiguration in line with the tasks post 1994. The key questions therefore that this Congress must answer is how should the Alliance reconfigured, and how this Alliance should reflect the working class bias of our movement as a whole?

During these last five years the ANC, and indeed our Alliance as a whole, has been faced with one of its most difficult periods, especially on matters relating to the Deputy President of the ANC, Cde Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma. As the SACP, together with our Allies, we have, on a principled basis, supported the Deputy President of the ANC, especially in relation to what we saw as the abuse of state organs in relation to the investigation and charges of corruption against him. As the SACP we shall forever remain vigilant that our state organs are never abused against any individual in our country.

Our principled support for the Deputy President of the ANC, together with our Allies, has nothing to do with whoever becomes President of the ANC. This is a matter for the ANC, and our cadres are free to vote as they wish as ANC members and delegates, and we shall accept whatever outcomes from the ANC`s 52nd National Conference in December 2007. We are confident that the forthcoming ANC Conference emerges with a collective leadership capable of respecting the Alliance and its unity, and lead the struggle to deepen and consolidate an NDR that will benefit the workers and the poor of our country. We are inspired by the leadership provided at the recent ANC Policy Conference, that will hopefully lay the basis for an even more united ANC after its December 2007 National Conference.

Communist cadres to the front!

The South African Communist Party has been in the trenches of class struggle for 86 unbroken years. We have survived persecution and oppression. We can justifiably claim, together with our alliance partners, major victories, none of them easy. We have learnt over the last decade that surviving a victory is also a skill. A victory can be undermined and lost.

As we meet at our 12th National Congress as the SACP (to which should be added the nearly 30 annual national congresses in which we convened as the CPSA) we have a larger membership than at any time of our history.

We are sure that this 12th Congress will galvanise the Party and indeed its alliance to ensure that we advance, deepen and defend the national democratic revolution – the South African road to socialism.

Communist cadres to the front!  Socialism is the future, build it now!

Lelilizwe ngelamaKomanisi!