BUILD PEOPLE’S POWER – BUILD SOCIALISM NOW!

Programme of the South African Communist Party

CONTENTS

1. A socialist approach to the consolidation and deepening of the NDR
2. The South African revolution in its international context
3. Economic transformation
4. Transforming the state
5. Our Marxism
6. Build Socialism Now

This programme was adopted at the 10th Congress of the SACP, July 1998.

 

A socialist approach to the consolidation and deepening of
the National Democratic Revolution

"The proletariat alone is capable of carrying the democratic
revolution to the end ... the main task of the proletariat at the current
historical moment is to carry the democratic revolution ... forward to the end
... any minimisation of this task inevitably results in the working class
being transformed from the leader of the people`s revolution into a passive
participant in the revolution tailing behind the liberal bourgeoisie."
(Lenin, 1907)

At the SACP 9th Party Congress in 1995 we identified the consolidation of the
national democratic revolution (NDR) as the most important task facing our Party
and the national liberation movement as a whole. This strategic perspective was
grounded in the new political situation - the ANC’s victory in the South
Africa`s first democratic elections in April 1994. At the 9th
Congress we characterised this event as a democratic breakthrough that
qualitatively shifted the balance of forces in favour of the mass of the people
and placed the NDR on a new plane.

This breakthrough marked the political defeat of the apartheid regime, and
more generally, the strategic defeat of colonialism of a special type (CST), the
specific character that capitalist rule had assumed in our country. This
strategic defeat opened up the possibilities for a bloc of forces, led by the
ANC, to establish bridge-heads into political power. However, as much as this
electoral victory advanced the goals of the NDR, it did not signal the
completion of the tasks facing the national liberation movement.

When we adopted this position, we were clear that advancing, deepening and
defending the NDR would involve a protracted struggle. Apart from the relatively
unfavourable international context, dominated by imperialism, our NDR is also
threatened by the weight of the past in the present, by the huge backlog of
poverty, unemployment and skewed development we have inherited, and by a range
of minority class and other social forces within our country, determined to
defend ill-begotten powers and privileges. Though strategically off-balance, for
the moment, at the political level, these forces continue to possess significant
power, and they are actively endeavouring to regroup. In a sense, the revolution
is encumbered by the very things it seeks to overcome.

 

1. The character of the NDR

Like many third world societies emerging from authoritarian and colonial
rule, South Africa`s struggle to consolidate democracy, reconstruction and
development has to be directed at several interrelated challenges, key among
them are the national, class and gender contradictions.

None of these contradictions can be resolved in isolation. In South Africa,
the fundamental basis of CST was the national oppression of the black majority
as a necessary condition for the economic exploitation of black workers. These
interrelated realities underpinned the specific growth path of capitalism in
our society, and have resulted in a society that is one of the most unequal on
earth. Patriarchal oppression was integrated into, and vastly extended under,
CST as an equally necessary component in the reproduction of this minority
rule dispensation.

The main strategic objective of the NDR, the overcoming of the legacy of
centuries of colonial and decades of special colonial oppression, has to be
addressed in the context of overcoming the national, class and gender
contradictions in their relationship to each other. It is within this
strategic framework that the deepening of the revolution should be approached
by our Party.

 

1.1 Class struggle in the national struggle

In particular, we must guard against a mechanical, stageist approach to
these interconnected challenges. We must reject attempts to confine the
present phase of the NDR to a simple "deracialisation" of
capitalism, which seeks to postpone working class struggle against capitalism
to some distant "second stage".

A simple transfer and more "equitable" sharing of some of the
existing white-monopolised ownership and management powers within the
framework of the present capitalist system will only scratch the surface of
the legacy of racial oppression in our country. The particular colonial growth
path of capitalism in South Africa involved mass land dispossession, forced
labour, and the hostel system. Central to CST capitalism was the coerced and
racialised reproduction of a huge reserve army of "cheap" labour
(through the reserve/bantustan system, bantu education, forced removals, pass
laws, the domination and destabilising of neighbouring countries, and many
other features). The legacy of this capitalist growth path is still with us,
in land shortages, mass unemployment, homelessness, high levels of illiteracy
and low levels of skill development, huge inequalities in physical
infrastructure within our country, and our region.

This legacy will not be transformed by the mere deracialisation of the
board-rooms. It is not simply the "equitable" sharing of some
economic privileges to a new elite that is required. The thorough-going
transformation of economic power relations has to be undertaken within the
context of the NDR itself. The deracialisation of board-rooms and of the
management function can only be justified if it is part and parcel of this
broader transformation programme.

Maintaining a consistent class perspective is critical in our present
conjuncture. At present, in South Africa there is often considerable
sensitivity (at least rhetorical) to race and gender matters – class is all
too easily forgotten.

An anti-capitalist class-struggle cannot be held over to some later stage
of our transformation process. This is why the SACP has, since our 9th
Congress in April 1995, advanced the slogan: "Socialism is the Future,
Build it Now!"

 

1.2 Gender struggle in the national and class struggle

Likewise, overcoming gender oppression in our society cannot be delayed as
if it were a "side-issue". Nor, as history has taught us, can we
make the assumption that the oppression of women will simply wither away under
some future socialist dispensation.

Neither the NDR nor socialism can be consolidated unless we simultaneously
and self-consciously attack gender oppression. CST and the specific capitalist
growth path in our country involved the appropriation of existing patriarchal
customs and traditions, and their articulation into the reproduction processes
of CST capitalism. In turn, these patriarchal relations acted as a mechanism
to reproduce the particular kind of capitalism we had in South Africa.

This articulation saw the vast exacerbation of the coercive features of
pre-existing patriarchy. In particular, the brunt of the reproduction of a
massive army of reserve cheap labour was borne by the unpaid (and hidden)
labour and effort of millions of women. The reproductive functions often
carried (at least to some extent) by society at large in other developed
economies (by way of pensions, public education, health-care and housing, and
municipal water and power infrastructure) has been borne, at huge personal
cost, by millions of black women in our country (and in our region). It is
they who have had to care for the young, the sick, the unemployed and the
aged. It is they who have had to spend their lives fetching water and fuel.
The legacy of this continues to impact dramatically upon the
life-opportunities, resources, and general marginalisation of the women of our
country and region.

We must reaffirm our view, as the SACP, that there can be no true national
liberation nor socialism without the progressive eradication of gender
inequality and patriarchal practices and institutions.

The resilience of patriarchal institutions and practices has largely,
though not exclusively, been reinforced by ideologically projecting women`s
oppression and gender inequalities as part of "normal",
"acceptable" and "long-standing" cultural traditions. The
institution of chieftaincy, once a focal point for anti-colonial resistance,
is a stark example of how colonial oppression and racialised capitalism can
appropriate, preserve and transform "traditions", subordinating them
to the purposes of national oppression and class exploitation. While
"traditional" values, however distorted they may have become, need
to be handled sensitively, the SACP must be prepared to speak up honestly
about and deal fearlessly with the abusive character of many
"traditions".

It would be wrong to attribute patriarchal practices only to the oppressor
or to dominant ruling blocs. Within the working class and the poor, these
practices are prevalent and harsh. The heaviest burden of the social
conditions under which the working class and the poor live falls mainly on
women. Patriarchal attitudes, coupled with the general social distress and
dislocation felt by the poor of our country, also results in extremely high
levels of domestic violence and abuse, directed against women and children.
Hence the importance of consciously combating patriarchy as a necessary
component of mobilising and strengthening the working class as a political
force for itself. In fact, the working class cannot be raised to the level of
a political class for itself, without at the same time consciously challenging
patriarchal attitudes and practices within this class.

 

1.3 The national question in the class and gender struggles

The relationship between national (or gender) oppression and class
exploitation is not a relationship of "form" to "content".
National and gender oppression are not merely formal, they are all too real in
themselves. They have a history, they are institutionalised, and they have a
relative autonomy from class exploitation. The one cannot simply be collapsed
or explained by the other. Likewise, one or the other oppression will not
simply wither away because another of the oppressions has been overcome.

These three realities are, as we have been arguing above, deeply
interconnected. For this reason, the SACP also believes that the struggle
against these oppressions cannot be separated out into different
"stages" of struggle.

However, the SACP continues to affirm the centrality, in the present South
African reality, of the national question. The legacy of racial oppression
directed at blacks in general, and Africans in particular, continues to be the
dominant feature of our society. It is for this reason that, as Communists, we
have worked over decades with non-Communist comrades to build a powerful ANC.
It is for this reason that, as South African Communists, we recognise the
leading role of the ANC. It is a leading role that we seek to constantly
build, as Communists.

When we argue that the national question is central to the present South
African reality we are essentially recognising the major base around which a
massive social movement needs to be sustained, in order to ensure the ongoing
momentum of transformation. It is no accident it was a national movement, led
by the ANC, that strategically defeated the political ruling bloc in the early
1990s. It is no accident (nor is it an "unfortunate historical
legacy") that the mobilised mass base of the ANC (and SACP) is
overwhelmingly black in general and African in particular. A sense of black
and particularly African national grievance, and of national identity and
pride remain crucial motive forces for our ongoing democratic and socialist
transformation struggles.

Of course, in the decades-long history of the Communist Party in South
Africa, and indeed of the ANC, these national traditions have always also been
non-racial and open in character. Our nationalism has nothing to do with
chauvinism, or with the sectarian denigration of other cultures, languages or
traditions. Our national traditions are also dynamic and evolving. Our
strategy as the SACP, for the present conjuncture, is to help organise all
socialists, all democrats, all working people, black and white, into the
struggle for democracy, reconstruction and development within the context of
the African realities of our country, and our continent.

 

2. The social and class realities of South Africa

The national, class and gender oppressions of our past have shaped a South
Africa that remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. Income
inequality is sometimes measured by the Gini co-efficient, which allows for
comparisons across countries. In terms of this measurement South Africa has
"among the highest income inequality in the world" ("Key
Indicators of Poverty in SA"). In 1992 the World Bank calculated that
51,2% of annual income went to the richest 10% of the population (it was 8% in
1975). Less than 3,9% of income is earned by the poorest 40% of the
population. Similarly, in 1995 the RDP Office reported that the poorest half
of the population accounts for only 10% of consumption, while the richest 5%
accounts for 40% of consumption.

These gross inequalities in our society correspond largely (but not
exclusively) to race. In 1993, 54% of Africans, 25% of coloureds, 8% of South
Africans of Asian origin, and less than 0,5% of whites were calculated to be
living in poverty by the World Bank.

Nevertheless, there have also been some fairly dynamic changes within this
general pattern. Over the last two decades huge disparities have begun to open
up among Africans. The mean income of the lowest-earning 40% of African
households declined by almost 40% between 1975 and 1991, while the richest 20%
of African households (representing 5,6 million people) soared by 40%. In
1975, less than 10% of the richest 20% of households in South Africa were
African, by 1991 that figure had risen to 26%.

These very significant shifts within the majority African population of our
country reflect important class dynamics that the SACP must understand very
clearly.

In part, the shifts are the consequence of the capacity, from the second
half of the 1970s through to the 1990s, of increasingly organised African
workers (drawn largely from the semi-skilled ranks of the working class) to
make significant wage gains. However, it would be a grave error to argue (as
some do) that redistribution through effective wage negotiations, has created
a "black labour aristocracy".

Organised African workers are, typically, connected to the unorganised and
to the unemployed by extended family networks. This occurs in the context of a
society in which there is very little effective social wage, and in which the
potentially cushioning capacity of independent peasant farming (for the
unemployed, the young, sick and old) has been reduced to a minimal reality.
Urbanisation levels in South Africa are as high as 50 or even 60%. In the
context of all of this, the wage packet of an employed African worker is
typically redistributed through an extended family network, and is made to
cover high costs for items like transport (exacerbated by apartheid geography
and an undeveloped public transport network).

Much more significant in the acceleration of inequalities among the African
population have been:

• Co-oercive reform efforts to create black buffer classes in the final
  decade-and-a-half of apartheid. In particular, a narrow but avaricious
  bantustan elite was fostered in this period;
• The rapid promotion, in the 1990s, of tens of thousands of African
  professionals into the ranks of middle and senior management in the public
  and private sectors; and the rapid rise of a small but not insignificant
  black bourgeoisie; and, on the other hand
• Capitalist restructuring of the work-force over the last two decades. On
  the one hand, levels of employment in the formal sector have dropped
  drastically over this period. Unemployment has, concomitantly grown
  massively. Depending on the definition used for unemployment, anything
  between 20 and 35% of people over 15 years are unemployed. About 1,7
  million people now, also, work in the so-called informal sector. Among
  workers employed in the formal sector there has also been growing
  stratification.

All of these shifting class dynamics remain markedly racialised and
gendered. While half of the South African population lives in rural areas,
almost two thirds (63%) of Africans are in these areas, against a far smaller
proportion of coloureds (16%), Indians (5%) and whites (9%). It is African
women, more than any other group, who suffer most from unemployment (47% are
estimated to be unemployed). Likewise, it is Africans generally (1,03 million)
and African women in particular (772,000), who make up the majority of people
(1,7 million) working in the typically low-wage or unpaid informal sector.

While there have been some significant shifts in the 1990s in terms of the
upper middle strata, the 1995 October Household Survey of the CSS still found
that fewer than 4% of African males and 2% of African females were in
managerial posts. The corresponding figures for Coloureds was even lower (3%
of males, 1% of females).

Interestingly, the same October 1995 survey found that approximately one
third of all South African workers were unionised, with membership being
highest among African male (39%) and female (36%) workers, with white female
workers (17%) being the least likely to be members of unions.

It is on the terrain of these still highly racialised and gendered, but
nonetheless shifting, class and social realities, that our ANC-led national
liberation movement, but also a variety of other political formations and
agendas, have been seeking to shape the post-1994 South African reality.

 

3. Assessing the present conjuncture

Part of the strategy of our opponents is to sow demoralisation about the
"lack of progress" since the democratic breakthrough of April 1994.
Sometimes the implied message of this campaign is racist ("blacks are
incompetent"). There are also some on the left who, unwittingly perhaps,
take up the same demoralisation campaign, with loose talk about the
"betrayal" of the revolution. The fact that such a campaign exists
should not deter the SACP from making an honest assessment of progress, or the
lack of it, since April 1994. There have, undoubtedly, been hesitations and
mistakes, and the medium and longer-term outcome of the transformation process
is deeply contested.

 

3.1 Achievements

It would be strategically and historically stupid, however, not to grasp
the massive process of transformation that is under-way in our country.
Without going into substantial detail, there are several broad areas that must
be high-lighted:

• Political democratisation – our liberation movement has
  successfully steered our country into representative democracy. There has
  been steady, if still uneven, consolidation of national, provincial and
  local tier democratic structures, within the context of an innovative
  co-operative governance approach, that sees these three spheres are
  inextricably united in an overall national transformation process. The
  victory of the ANC in a large majority of local government elections in
  1995/6 has helped to consolidate the 1994 breakthrough, and it has extended
  democratic participation to hundreds of localities that were racially
  divided in the past. We have adopted a new and extremely progressive
  constitution. The constitution enshrines basic democratic rights, and also,
  importantly, socio-economic rights. Although major transformation struggles
  are still under-way, generally most state institutions, including the
  legislatures and the criminal-justice system are starting to be more
  accessible and more attuned to the needs of the majority. Most importantly,
  the overwhelming majority of South Africans, regardless of their political
  affiliations, broadly accept the reality and necessity of the new political
  dispensation;
  
   
• Peace and stability – there has been a dramatic curtailment of
  political violence in our country. In the nine years immediately preceding
  April 1994, over 15,000 people were killed in political violence. There was an
  immediate cessation of political violence after April 1994 in virtually all
  parts of our country (with the partial exception of KwaZulu/Natal). This
  abrupt halt underlines the strategic nature of that violence (it was a
  deliberate component of the apartheid regime’s strategy, including its
  coercive reform strategy of the 1980s, and its negotiation strategy between
  1990 and 1994). The virtual cessation of this violence also underlines the
  incontestable legitimacy of the ANC electoral victory, and the marginalisation
  of those forces behind the violence. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission
  process, fully supported by the SACP and its alliance, has also contributed to
  fostering the political and moral conditions for sustainable peace and
  stability in our country. Although the truth about gross human rights abuses
  in the apartheid period has only emerged very partially, the patterns and
  obvious high-level responsibilities for these gross abuses (including
  systematic assassinations, disappearances, torture and dirty tricks of all
  kinds) have deepened the crisis of the National Party, and other elements of
  the old ruling bloc, including its bantustan adjuncts.
  
   
• Socio-economic transformation. The strategic defeat of CST, marked by
  the April 1994 democratic breakthrough, was, essentially, a political and
  moral defeat. It is on the political and moral fronts that we have best been
  able to advance, deepen and defend our breakthrough. Predictably, on the front
  of social and economic transformation, change has often been harder to bring
  about, we are up against powerful vested interests and powers. Transformation
  on this front has often been either negligible or frustratingly slow.
  Nevertheless, there are many areas in which significant gains have been made.
  These include:

• Major infrastructural programmes – the most notable of which
  have been the mass electrification of poor households (over 2 million
  households in the first three years); and the provision of safe drinking
  water to poor communities.
  
   
• Health-care – primary health-care is increasingly available to
  all, and it is now free for the first time. Major struggles are being waged,
  led by government, against the transnational pharmaceutical companies to
  ensure that drugs are available and affordable.
  
   
• Land reform and land restitution – are beginning to gather
  momentum, and the rights of labour tenants on commercial (usually
  white-owned) farms have been substantially improved in law.
  
   
• The transformation of the labour market – in the face of
  substantial opposition from the capitalist class and the media that supports
  it, the ANC-led government and its alliance forces have piloted progressive
  legislation through the National Assembly, including, notably, the Labour
  Relations Act and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. This legislation
  greatly extends the empowerment of workers in the labour market, and at the
  point of production. Other institutions, like NEDLAC (the National Economic,
  Development and Labour Council) and the Council for Conciliation, Mediation
  and Arbitration (the CCMA), also help to restrict the monopoly of management
  over work-place practices, and over broader economic policy issues.
  
   
• Women’s emancipation – significant progress has been made in
  setting up the national machinery for gender equality in line with the
  constitutional provisions and our movement’s commitment to place this high
  on the agenda of social transformation. Apart from other socio-economic
  transformation processes, noted above, which have a direct bearing on
  alleviating the material basis of women’s oppression (like land reform,
  electrification and water provision programmes) the new Right of Choice and
  Termination of Pregnancy Act should be singled out. In the past, tens of
  thousands of women died, or suffered serious injury, each year, as a result
  of back-street abortions. The SACP salutes the legalisation of abortion, and
  commits itself to playing an active role in deepening popular understanding
  for and support of this progressive advance.
  
   
• Educational transformation – legislative and policy measures have
  been taken to ensure that the education system is transformed from a racist,
  ethnically based system into a non-racial, non-sexist and high-quality
  public education system. Huge problems and inequalities persist, but the
  education system is slowly moving out of its apartheid crisis.

There are numerous other areas in which there have been significant, or at
the very least partial advances – from the deracialisation and more
strategic targeting of pensions and other welfare grants, to the progressive
transformation of the public broadcaster and the licensing of numerous
community radio stations. There is not a single area of South African life,
from sport to transport, that is not in some way caught up in the struggle for
transformation.

The SACP forcefully rejects the idea that "nothing has changed"
in South Africa, or that "the revolution has been betrayed".

However, the SACP is also deeply conscious of the massive crises that still
afflict our society – the crisis of mass unemployment, of poverty, and of
high levels of criminal violence, in particular. All of these problems have
their roots in the objective legacy with which we are having to deal.
Resolution of these problems is also hampered by the still active presence in
our society of class and other social forces that are determined to defend
their own ill-begotten powers and privileges from the past.

 

3.2 Strategic shortcomings

But the question must also be asked: Have there not been strategic,
subjective short-comings on the side of our own alliance-based, liberation
movement in the period since the April 1994 breakthrough? Have we used the
relatively more favourable balance of forces within our country to maximum
effect?

The SACP believes that there have been such strategic shortcomings, and
that these shortcomings relate, essentially, to four broad and interrelated
areas:

• Misunderstanding our location within global realities – We will
  elaborate, in the chapter on the international conjuncture, on what we
  consider to have been strategic uncertainties and illusions that have tended
  to afflict our approach to contemporary global, and specifically economic,
  realities. These strategic uncertainties are, in turn, directly related to:
  
   
• Macro-economic policy – while accepting the need to manage the
  economy in a sustainable way, while accepting the need for fiscal discipline
  (we are dealing with public resources, after all), and the need to effectively
  manage government debt – the SACP is convinced that government’s
  macro-economic framework policy, GEAR, is seriously flawed in certain
  important respects.

We believe that the budget deficit reduction targets are arbitrary, based
as they are on macro-economic models derived from a largely unreconstructed
Reserve Bank. GEAR embodies, in its core fiscal and monetary policies, a
neo-liberal approach that is at variance with our reconstruction and
development objectives. Much of GEAR marks a shift away from ANC economic
policy in the first half of the 1990s, which underlined the
interconnectedness of growth and development, which envisaged a major
emphasis on growth led by domestic and regional infrastructural development.
More and more, there has been a shift towards the assumptions of an
export-led growth, based on the myth that deregulation and liberalisation,
more or less on their own, will make the South African economy
"globally competitive".

Above all, macro-economic hopes are increasingly pinned upon the massive
(but unpredictable) inflow of private sector investments. The role of the
new democratic government is more and more centred upon creating an
"investor friendly" climate, rather than on leading an economic
reconstruction and development process. The economy also continues to be
held hostage by a Reserve Bank implementing narrow monetarist policies,
focused on very high interest rates.

The SACP acknowledges that some progress has been achieved on the
economic front. Growth, even if it is still very low growth, has been
restored to the South African economy, after over a decade of negative
growth. A much more progressive and transparent budgeting system has been
introduced, and important work on budgetary reprioritisation is taking
effect. There has been progressive (if not sufficient) reform of the tax
system.

However, in acknowledging all of this, the SACP believes that nearly two
years of GEAR are beginning to confirm our concerns. Growth targets are not
being met, the arbitrary budget deficit targets are wreaking havoc on all of
the other good work we are doing in socio-economic transformation, and,
above all, the small growth that has occurred has been accompanied by
persistent structural unemployment, indeed there have been net job losses,
with hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs in the last two
years.

• Lack of consistency in building a strong, developmental state –
  although the official policy of government and of the alliance is that the
  state should play an active and developmental role in the economy, in
  practice this strategic standpoint is often not pursued. "Privatisation"
  is still often proclaimed to be official government policy and an end in
  itself, notwithstanding the National Framework Accord on the Restructuring
  of State Assets. The transformation of the public sector is often reduced to
  a narrow cost-cutting, budget-deficit reduction exercise. And the role of
  the state in the economy often amounts to little more than pleas to the
  private sector.
  
   
• The tendency to demobilise the mass popular movement – although
  the RDP and many other policy perspectives and campaign programmes,
  including, nominally at least, the Masakhane Campaign, recognise the need
  for a people-centred, but also people-driven transformation, the mass
  popular movement in our country has been considerably demobilised since
  April 1994. There have been many factors at work in this –

• The redeployment of tens of thousands of cadres from their township,
  sectoral and work-place structures into the new institutions of our
  developing democracy (legislatures, administrations, security forces,
  and also into private sector positions). While these redeployed comrades
  are not lost to struggle, nor even necessarily to their original
  constituencies, this major and progressive transformation process has
  destablised mass and community based organisations.
  
   
• The need, on the side of mass and community based organisations to
  re-orient themselves, to grapple with new challenges, with greater
  emphasis on developmental struggles, in tandem with and not in
  opposition to public structures and institutions. Our mass formations
  have sometimes found it difficult to give fundamental strategic support
  to our democratic government without turning themselves into toothless
  "sweetheart" sectoral formations, conversely, their attempts
  to genuinely articulate the concerns of their sectors are often
  castigated as "irresponsible". Maintaining the mass
  mobilisational capacities of our movement (as we must), but in the new
  conditions of governance, has often proved difficult.
  
   
• Confusing, demobilising signals to the mass base that "we are now
  in power", and "we shall deliver". This is related to
  tendencies to adopt narrow technicist and managerialist approaches, that
  are impatient with consultation and other essential elements of a
  developmental approach to transformation.
  
   
• Directly related to this is the increasing marketisation of the
  relationship of communities to governance. There is a tendency for local
  government, for instance, to see communities as little more than
  individual household "consumers" and "clients" of
  services. Not only does this bureaucratise governance, but it fragments
  communities into individual households, and poverty becomes, not a
  collective concern, but an atomised household responsibility.

These four inter-related areas of strategic uncertainty (in locating
ourselves globally, macro-economic policy, the developmental state, and in how
to sustain the mobilisation of our mass base) are matters of serious concern
to the SACP, and indeed to many within our broader alliance. We have taken up
these questions systematically within our alliance, and in public debate. We
welcome the agreement that no policies are cast in stone, and that there
should be ongoing intra-Alliance discussion on these and other key strategic
matters.

The SACP, for its part, commits itself to playing a constructive role in
the unfolding NDR. Thousands of SACP members are active in government at all
levels, and in the legislatures. The SACP, together with its alliance
partners, has been prepared to assume collective responsibility for
governance. Insofar as the Party expresses robust criticism, it is not from
some safe, holier-than-thou, comfort zone. Nor do we level criticism in order
to score points. Our critical concerns have one principal motivation only –
a failure to address weaknesses in governance and in our broader alliance
could pose a threat to the very deepening and consolidation of the NDR itself.

 

4. Threats to national democratic transformation

In propagating the perspective:"Advance, Deepen and Defend the
Democratic Breakthrough", the SACP acknowledged in 1995 that the
trajectory of the transitional process was uncertain, and that our strategic
goals would have to be struggled for in the face of opposition forces.

The 1994 democratic breakthrough represented a strategic political defeat
of CST, white minority rule was no longer viable. But the breakthrough did not
of itself affect substantial powers and privileges accumulated in the past.
Positioned powerfully within the economy, some of our state institutions (like
the judiciary and security forces), and in parts of the media and other
important civil society structures, are social forces from the former ruling
bloc.

These forces have, basically, three strategic options:

• To mount an active counter-revolutionary struggle, to reverse the
  democratic breakthrough of 1994;
• Or to work within the post-1994 constitutional and institutional
  framework (either as constitutional opposition forces, or from within the
  liberation movement itself), in order to block substantial change, to
  preserve powers and privileges from the past.
• Or to throw in their lot wholeheartedly with the national democratic
  transformation effort (a choice that some have made);

These strategic choices are, obviously, outlined here in a very schematic
way. In particular, some political forces often pursue the first and second
options simultaneously. Social forces also do not necessarily act with
complete political clarity, often there is a hedging of bets between different
options, and there are interconnections between different forces pursuing
different agendas.

Bearing all of this in mind, it is still useful to seek to define from
which quarter the most serious threat to our NDR is posed. It is precisely
confusion in this regard that can lead to strategic differences within our
national liberation movement.

 

4.1 A counter-revolutionary threat?

In a society in the midst of a far-reaching transformation process, it
would be naïve to ignore the danger of counter-revolution. This applies even
more forcefully to a country (and region) like our own, emerging out of three
decades of armed conflict. Apartheid, in attempting to prolong itself,
developed a host of dirty tricks networks, disinformation structures, a
culture of subterfuge and the abuse of state resources, the vast expansion of
private security forces of all kinds, and the amassing of large quantities of
weaponry. Much of this legacy is now at the heart of the violent crime
problems that we confront.

The SACP believes that the counter-revolutionary threat should neither be
underrated nor over-stated in our present situation. Disinformation about an
elaborate right-wing (and sometimes even a "left-wing")
counter-revolution has been one of the ploys used by the old apartheid
intelligence structures, in an attempt to extract concessions from the ANC.

Counter-revolutionary forces currently lack any serious mass base, nor do
they enjoy any significant economic backing. Neither the major imperialist
powers, nor the major South African corporations, are seriously considering
this option. Clearly we need to monitor and deal effectively with pockets of
potential counter-revolution. Above all, we need to ensure that, through our
own conduct, we do not create room for manoeuvre for these forces. This means,
amongst others things:

• Handling issues relating to culture and tradition with sensitivity,
  without being held hostage by these factors;
• Showing the greatest respect, ourselves, for the new constitutional and
  democratic order; and, above all
• Pressing ahead with massive reconstruction and development, in which the
  most marginalised areas of our society are brought into the process of
  transformation.

Vigilance is certainly required. Counter-revolutionary networks still
exist, from time to time deliberately instigated political violence occurs,
parts of the security forces and the judicial system remain untransformed,
there are links between counter-revolutionary political forces and criminal
syndicates, and our own southern African region remains relatively unstable.
On the other hand, it would also be a serious strategic miscalculation to
project our liberation movement and our new democratic government as besieged,
as threatened on all sides. Our liberation movement enjoys massive support,
and extensive legitimacy nationally and internationally. We must foster with
confidence the political and moral hegemony that we do, in fact, enjoy. The
ultimate defence against counter-revolution is the ongoing mobilisation of
mass forces.

 

4.2 Constitutional opposition forces

In the present conjuncture, our multi-party electoral dispensation is
basically aligned around a national liberation movement (the ANC), enjoying
overwhelming majority support from those historically oppressed by CST, and
various political formations that represent (or seek to represent) classes and
other social forces that benefited, or believe they benefited, from the past.

The PAC is a minor anomaly within this general alignment. The PAC seeks to
represent the same constituency as the broad ANC-led alliance, but since its
formation as a break-away from the ANC in 1959, it has lacked any serious
(still less consistent) politics. Since 1959 it has manoeuvred back and forth,
tactically, seeking to project itself as somehow different from the ANC, while
awaiting for some mass disillusionment within ANC ranks to swell its own. In
short, throughout its history the only real consistency in PAC politics has
been opportunism. A similar opportunism, for the moment even more vague than
that of the PAC, is to be found in the newly launched UDM. More than a year
after its launch, the UDM has still to announce its political programme, or
even basic manifesto.

The central dynamic of our National Assembly (and of other legislatures) is
the engagement of a national liberation movement, striving to advance the
momentum of transformation, with other political parties (notably the NP, IFP,
FF and DP) that, in various ways, seek to slow the pace of change, and to
preserve islands of pre-existing power and privilege (whether in education,
residential areas, in "traditional" customs, or in the economy).
These parties do, indeed, represent actual, albeit relatively small,
constituencies.

It is in the interests of the consolidation of the NDR that these various
constituencies are represented within the new, non-racial democratic
dispensation. The SACP is unambiguous in its support for our multi-party
dispensation, and in its support of the right of a range of political
formations to be represented therein.

The ANC-led alliance should, however, not assume that constituencies are
unchanging, or that they are timelessly in the pockets of this or that
political formation. For a variety of reasons, significant numbers of
historically oppressed people still vote for parties like the NP and IFP.
Without abandoning our principled, strategic commitments, the ANC-led alliance
must constantly seek to broaden its base (including its electoral base).

The SACP believes that for as long as the realities of South African
society are marked by vast disparities between a large majority who remain the
victims of the legacy of the past, and a small minority with hugely
disproportionate economic power, the present fundamental alignment of
electoral forces should be sustained. In other words, ensuring a massive,
numerical majority within the framework of a common (but broad) progressive
electoral platform is essential. The SACP believes that not only should our
tripartite alliance be sustained, but that (at least for the foreseeable
future) the SACP should not mount a separate electoral effort, albeit within
the context of an ongoing alliance. Naturally, this position is one that will
be reviewed in the light of changing circumstances.

But what threat to the NDR do the constitutional opposition parties
represent? In themselves these parties are able, in certain respects, to play
a blocking, obstructionist role – often relying on provincial or local level
powers to do so. But they are incapable, in their own right, of developing a
strategic project with any hope of redefining the social and political
terrain. Part of the reason for this incapacity is their inability to sustain
support in their own core constituencies on the one hand, and yet
simultaneously put together a feasible appeal to a broader (usually
non-racial) constituency that could mount a serious electoral challenge. By
and large, all are operating on the terrain of diminishing constituencies and
the partial if miniscule growth of one (the DP, for instance) is usually at
the expense of another of these minority parties.

Strategically these parties are positioned, therefore, little differently
from the PAC and UDM. They are all dreaming of some cataclysmic shattering of
the ANC and its alliance. For this reason, the breaking of the alliance is a
central and strategic objective of these forces.

However, constitutional opposition forces are not confined to political
parties – more significant are a host of economic, cultural, sports and
media institutions, often with substantial power completely disproportionate
to the actual numbers they represent. Included in these opposition forces are
a range of networks in strategic places, like the judiciary and the Reserve
Bank which, either consciously or from habit, seek to obstruct the policies of
the ANC-led government.

It is important to understand that, whatever their sympathy for these
various oppositional forces, the capitalist class in South Africa, and the
major international imperialist powers, are well aware of the improbability
(in any foreseeable future) that they will ever, singularly or collectively,
mount a majority political project. The support for these forces from the side
of big capital is muted by this strategic consideration.

The threat posed to the NDR by these forces is not remotely insurmountable.
The SACP believes that the best means to meeting the challenge posed by these
forces are, in any case, in line with the general tasks confronting the NDR.
We need to foster the unity of our own alliance, we need to press ahead with
reconstruction and development to undercut pockets of privilege and to draw
those most vulnerable into the process of democratisation. We need to ensure
that institutions like the Reserve Bank and the judiciary, as well as key
civil society structures – like the private media, and sports bodies –
become increasingly representative and aligned to our developmental
objectives.

For all of the above reasons, the SACP believes that the political
challenge posed to the NDR by these various constitutional forces can only
assume serious strategic significance if our own alliance becomes
significantly disunited, and strategically confused. It is in this regard that
the final threat to the NDR needs to be viewed:

 

4.3 Capital’s attempt to transform the liberation movement and to
re-define the trajectory of change

The most serious long-term strategic threat to the NDR is the attempt by
capital to engage and transform our own liberation movement with a view to
stabilising a new, "deracialised" capitalist ruling bloc. Central to
this strategic project is the attempt to re-define the NDR as a struggle:

• To "modernise" the South African economy, to make it
  "more competitive" on the "global stage";
• To "normalise" South Africa’s political dispensation; and
• To stabilise and surpass the present crisis within a new capitalist
  order in our country.

Around this attempted re-definition of the "NDR" is a potential
new ruling bloc in formation, dominated by old and emergent new fractions of
the bourgeoisie.

Within the calculations of this project, the old and emerging bourgeois
factions will not (and could not) go it alone. The new bloc will seek to
present its interests as those of a broader range of middle strata, especially
the rapidly forming new black middle strata – professionals, private and
parastatal managers, middle and senior level civil servants. "Modernising",
"normalising", "globalising", "black economic
empowerment" and plain self-enrichment will be among the major themes
around which this bloc will attempt to consolidate itself. Socialism, more
substantial transformation, and the Freedom Charter are viewed as
"baggage from the past". Real issues, like gender oppression, are
picked up within this project, but are then largely confined to elite concerns
and resolutions, such as ensuring that a quota of women are represented within
the emerging public and private sector elite.

This project will not ignore the organised working class. It will seek to
incorporate the more organised, more skilled sections of the working class as
junior partners within its ruling bloc. Ironically, the very forces that
castigate COSATU as an "elite", are the ones that most actively seek
to transform strategic sections of this organised working class into an elite.
This is the logic of the "first tier" of the proposed
"two-tiered labour market" advanced by leading sections of South
African capital. This is also one implication of the insistence on whole-scale
privatisation – the net effect of which would be to render housing,
effective transport, health-care and training accessible only to a small,
relatively advantaged section of the working class. This kind of objective is
the strategic purpose that these forces give to the idea of a "social
accord". Of course, the powers and numerical strength of a co-opted tier
of the working class will be eroded by the simultaneous extension of a more
right-less, more flexible, more temporary, more casualised second-tier of
workers.

The strengths of this "modernising" version of the ND
transformation process should not be underrated. They include:

• this ideology has a spontaneous self-evidence about it, especially for
  the hundreds of thousands of new professionals, public and private sector
  junior and middle managers, and newly elected representatives in all
  spheres of government. These are the individuals who, at a subjective
  level, are the most obvious beneficiaries of the 1994 breakthrough. There
  has been a very sudden and generally well-deserved increase in the
  possibilities for professional advancement, with accompanying increases in
  power, privilege and authority for tens of thousands of black
  professionals. What makes these developments particularly significant is
  that these tens of thousands have constituted the core cadre base for our
  movement. The structural limitations of their advancement are not always
  apparent at present. It may only be a few years before there is a dramatic
  decrease in the intake and promotion of individuals into the non-racial
  middle strata. Those who have not yet "made it", can still dream
  of succeeding. But, without major transformation struggles, the majority
  will not "make it". It must be emphasised immediately that we
  are not condemning the progressive emergence of a new, non-racial, middle
  strata. We are not advancing a moralising, "the poorer the
  better" thesis. Our concern is that unless we self-consciously tackle
  new realities, this development will give rise to a self-satisfied and
  limited version of our revolution.
  
   
• This version of ND transformation is also strengthened by the prevailing
  (although now less triumphalist) international hegemony of neo-liberalism.

However, whatever advantages this version of "ND" transformation
might enjoy, it also suffers from major weaknesses:

• it is likely to prove unstable and unsustainable. In practice, it
  amounts to a 30%-70% solution - an attempt to overcome the present
  post-apartheid crisis by stabilising a new capitalist order around about
  30% of the population, while the great majority remain marginal in a
  "flexible", "unregulated" and substantially
  "right-less" second tier. This majority would be overwhelmingly
  young, female and black - and its best hope, in this version of
  "ND" transformation, would be of some trickle-down from a "modernised"
  and "normalised" new South Africa. This path towards
  "ND" transformation is unjust and unworkable, and therein lies
  its second weakness and danger:
  
   
• its instability might lead to a growing emphasis on law and order,
  discipline and sacrifice (none being wrong in themselves, but an emphasis
  where these qualities are expected of the poor, and not of the elite
  becomes a diversion from real problems and from the need for deepening and
  speeding transformation). As the structural (and sheer numerical)
  limitations on upward mobility for the previously oppressed majority
  become more apparent and pressures mount for "more delivery",
  there are dangers that the newly arrived, taking their place alongside an
  older white elite, will increasingly identify with top-down managerialism
  (in the name of professionalism), and the use of authority. They might see
  in the excluded 70% less the motor force for ongoing transformation, and
  more a threat to newly acquired privilege and power.

The project to forge a new capitalist-dominated, non-racial ruling bloc has
other contradictions that we should understand. This bloc is likely to
marginalise some of the class fractions and strata that were part of the old
apartheid ruling bloc. These social forces are, therefore, likely to be
threatened by the deracialisation of South African society. While the more
strategic white capitalists have the vision and also the manoeuvrability to
foster the emergence of black capitalists and managers, this cannot be
achieved without impacting upon the vested interests of elements of the white
middle strata. The white capitalists might be committed to some form of (co-optive)
affirmative action, but they cannot afford to lose the expertise and loyalty
of a white managerial stratum. Hence the often slow progress in affirmative
action in the private capitalist sector, despite an increase in number of
black faces in the corporations.

 

5. The ND transformation as a thorough-going revolutionary transformation
   under the hegemonic leadership of the workers and the poor

The trajectory of the post-1994 South African transformation process
depends upon many inter-acting factors. Viewed from a class perspective, there
are two fundamentally different outcomes that are possible. The first is the
scenario we have just considered – the consolidation of a new bourgeois
order, based upon persisting class, race and gender inequality, but presided
over by a new, non-racial ruling bloc. The alternative is a profound, national
democratic process, hegemonised by the working class and poor.

But working class leadership must not, in the first instance, be understood
as the mechanical equivalent of leadership by this or that worker organisation
(the SACP or COSATU, for instance). Neither trade unions nor working class
parties are immune from the dangers of being co-opted into other class
agendas. The working class hegemony of which we speak is one that has to be
constantly elaborated and contested for within working class organisations
themselves, and within the broader liberation movement.

In the effort to build working class hegemony, within our formations and
within society at large, the SACP considers the core social constituency of
the Party (and of COSATU) – organised workers in the formal sector – as
the crucial social force. It is this stratum of the working class that has the
collective numbers, and the strategic economic location, as well as the
revolutionary organisational traditions, to provide effective social weight to
any progressive agenda. The SACP needs to pay special organisational and
ideological attention to this critical contingent of the working class.

But the SACP (and COSATU and the ANC) must constantly struggle to ensure
that this revolutionary core of the working class, does not isolate itself
into a narrow syndicalism or workerism. The battles this core working class
takes up, the programmatic perspectives it advances (through our organisations)
must provide leadership to and help voice the aspirations of the vast numbers
of workers who are unorganised, in the informal sector, or unemployed. The
organised working class must constantly deepen its organic links with the
urban and rural poor.

The organised working class must draw to its side the great majority of
youth, students and professionals – who, in their majority, continue to
suffer the legacy of class, race and gender oppression. For these social
forces, as with the working class, change will be meaningless if it is not a
thorough-going transformation of the power relations of our society.

The organised working class must also seek to win over to its
transformational perspectives key elements occupying managerial positions in
both the public and private sector. Many of these are drawn historically from
the ranks of our liberation movement, and many have professional and moral
reasons to associate themselves with a thorough-going national democratic
transformation process. There is no reason why social productivity and
transformation, rather than profit maximisation, should not be the principal
organising concerns of many managers.

The organised working class must even endeavour to provide leadership to
the bourgeoisie. This means, amongst other things, engaging diversely with
different fractions of the bourgeoisie. The emerging black capitalist stratum
must be engaged, and not only on the basis of sentiment, and appeals to black
solidarity and "patriotism". The general economic dependency of this
stratum on the new democratic state must be used as leverage to ensure that
the investment decisions and productive activities of this black capitalist
stratum enhance the reconstruction and development agenda. This, indeed, will
be the real test of their "patriotism". Many of the deals engaged in
by this emergent faction are also dependent on partnerships with various
social funds (notably those controlled by trade unions). It is important to
ensure that, in the process, it is the social agenda of the collective owners’
of the funds, and not the profit agenda that becomes hegemonic.

Organised workers and their formations must also seek to exert influence
over other factions and sectors of capital. There are those sectors that are
most dependent upon the growth of the domestic (or regional) market, and those
that are less so. There are those sectors of capital that are most involved in
productive and infrastructural development, and whose interests are not
necessarily identical with other more speculative or finance-based sectors.
Organised working class formations must be prepared to engage tactically with
these potentially more progressive sectors and factions of capital. They must
be drawn, as much as possible, into the agenda of thorough-going national
democratic transformation.

Above all, the working class must dare to become the hegemonic class force
in our society. While waging a consistent class struggle to progressively
abolish capitalism, the working class must not slip into a narrow
oppositionist mentality. The working class, and the organisations that seek to
represent it, must dare to assume power, to engage with, transform and
hegemonise the state, the legislatures, and key institutions (economic,
cultural, and social) of society. This is not an easy, still less an
"evolutionist" struggle whose progressive outcome is guaranteed. But
this is the working class struggle, within the context of an unfolding NDR,
that the SACP, with its allies, must be prepared to wage.

The organisational means for ensuring the simultaneous class—conscious
organisation of workers and the broadening of their class agenda to embrace
the whole of society, necessitates:

• working class, socialist formations (the SACP and COSATU) – and, of
  course, an increasing strategic unity among them; as well as
• a broad liberation movement, the ANC, and a range of mass and
  community-based formations; and
• class conscious activity from within the state, as well as within
  broader civil society.

Working class hegemony in all of these organisational and institutional
sites cannot be taken for granted, it needs to be constantly fostered,
organised and struggled for. We are engaged in a massive historical struggle
to transform our society, on the terrain of an unfolding NDR, from a society
based on the logic of private profit, to a society based on social need.
Critical for the success of all of this are clear sectoral programmatic
perspectives, which will be elaborated in the following chapters of this
programme.

Contents