[YCLSA Discussion] Re: The SACP is the future of South African politics

[Dominic Tweedie]

Dear Comrades, I am sure that others who know him will agree: We in South Africa miss Cde Mlilo a lot, not least for his invariable composure and his constant good cheer. It is wonderful to have him debating here. I know that he will not mind at all if I contradict him! I will be brief, but I feel bound to confess that the latest Communist University series, which is going to become a Generic Course, is designed to address the question of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), for the benefit of comrades from South Africa and from Zimbabwe, and that my conclusions there will be very different from Cde Nqobizitha's. It seems like this Generic Course on the NDR has suddenly become a very urgent project. So I am rushing on with it. I have already posted tomorrow's installment, on the National Question, with texts from Brian Bunting and Jack Simons, as you may have noticed. The next, (Friday's) on the People's Republic (of China), plus political economy and class dynamics in general, and also referring to parts of Rosa Luxemburg's "Reform or Revolution", is ready. It may as well be posted now, too. The full course is planned in twelve parts, although that could change, and this will be the sixth. Please note that what I am doing, in effect, is drafting this Generic Course in public, by blog and by e-mail, prior to publishing it again as a semi-permanent resource on the Internet. [You can also see it at http://domza.blogspot.com/.] Therefore there is plenty of scope for challenge and debate, the fruits of which can be incorporated in the final version. In that spirit I would like to quote a paragraph from Mlilo's e-mail and contrast it with one that I am about to post on the Communist University. This is Mlilo's: "Given [graduation of South Africans from the University of Life &c], it is clear that the future of South Africa will be the South African Communist Party, or a significantly reconfigured African National Congress which speaks apologetically, forthrightly and consistently working people’s language in practical terms and in theory abandoning its broad church characterization. There will be no difference between the SACP and the ANC.   The ideas of the SACP will be dominant within the ranks of the ANC and its alliance partners leading to practical demands which require new direction and character from and on the ANC. The SACP will become the new leader of the Alliance!" And here is one that I have just written, and will soon publish: "As we become more aware of what is really happening, it becomes more and more apparent that the National Democratic Revolution need not be, and should not be, seen as a regrettable compromise, or as a temporary or an interim measure, or even as a stage, if a stage means a halt. The National Democratic Revolution is a positive, revolutionary move forward, and it is the only direct move forward that is possible in our circumstances, that can be accomplished in a peaceful, willed and rational way." If you read the full course you will see that I locate the origin of the NDR (I am not the only one to have done so) in 1920 in Lenin's speech to the 2nd Congress of the Communist International, on the National and Colonial Question. So the NDR is nothing if not a Communist project, but at the same time it proposes an alliance of classes, and then there must be a vehicle for the political _expression_ of that alliance, which in our case is the ANC, because of the history, which is also recounted in the Generic Course. Suffice it to say, in that regard, that the NDR exists by design and not by accident, and that the SACP has no reason, now, to go into competition with something that it built up deliberately over so many decades. What one has to look at, always, is the disposition of the classes that exist within every country, and to know that the relative strength of these classes is constantly changing. It is not so much that the University of Life teaches people new subjective lessons. Paulo Freire says that the opposite is the case. But that is another discussion. The point is that the facts change. The objective reality changes. The balance of class forces, generated by the mode of production, changes. But how quickly? Quantitative change is an indefinite thing. It's one of those things like: "How long is a piece of string?" The Chinese delegation said yesterday that they reckon to achieve socialism in 400 years time, precisely! I thought that was remarkable, but what is clear is that the Chinese have their eye on the ball in terms of class formation. It is never a matter of which political institution wins an imaginary contest for "power". I am afraid that concept has more to do with the bourgeois way of politics than with our revolutionary one. It is a matter of class dynamics, not party dynamics. Best, VC Nqobizitha Mlilo M wrote: Dear cde Mhlengi Kumalo   Thank you for the observation, it is appreciated.   The point really cde is that, the clarion call that 'socialism is the future, and we must build it now,' is sound and grounded in the historical and present facts of South Africa.   I am not a South African myself, but have been part of the South Africa Progressive Movement during my days as a student activist, that I think I can claim to have seen things unfolding. The status quo that you refer to, may or may not be correct, but the issue is that the future points to a completely differently configured South Africa.   Put simply, if you use the lenses of the present structuring of the leadership as you state, you may perhaps (though I doubt very much that you are correct) come to that conclusion, but remember those may simply be conjectural issues which do not distract from the reality that the social progression, the political-economy of South Africa is spelling socialism as the dominant thought for the near future. Amandla On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Mhlengi Kumalo <khumalomhle...@gmail.com> wrote: TO; Nqobizitha Mlilo cde i think you are right on some of the things you mentioned on this paper but do you really beleive at this juncture socialism is answer,  and do you really think that leadership of party in provincies is ready is ready to handle that pressure. the other thing that you need to take it into congnisence is that currently the communist party is led by the workers not by the communists wich is the the dangerouse part of your paper. consider that my leader write again becourse i can see the potancial of writing. we really need the cde`s with your your calliber in our party, i`m not a communist yet but i`n a scollar in communism, papers like yours assists us alot in growing poloticaly. !!!!! AMANDLA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:55 PM, Nqobizitha Mlilo M <nml...@gmail.com> wrote: The SACP is the future of South African politics South Africa, in the recent past weeks has been plagued by service delivery oriented strikes, demonstrations and out ward public display of anger. Generally, this has been happening in the township. Townships are where the majority of South Africa’s working people live. It is the same townships that have borne the brunt of Apartheid and resisted the same with remarkable bravery. Against Apartheid, they demanded the transformation of the body politic in the country to one which respected the rights of all people, black and white, and treated them with dignity.  This transformation meant a state which was responsive to the needs of the people and was active in dealing with poverty and indignation which also had a race factor. It was the hope and aspiration of a new South Africa which was non-racist, non-sexist and democratic. The anger they have displayed, put simply, is that the government, in its various forms and manifestations, has failed to deliver on its promises. These promises include adequate housing, water, electricity and other basic social goods. It is a scramble for resources. Broadly, the demand can be characterized as demands for the delivery of social goods which are promised in the Constitution through the Bill of Rights as socio-economic rights. Put this way, the failure to deliver on the socio-economic rights is a breach by the state of the social contract expressed in the Constitution. The response from some quarters has been that this public display of anger was being driven by a third force. However, this third force has, then and now, never unpacked or identified. For a country which has been experiencing encouraging positive figures of growth rates, this could only mean that the wealth which was being created was not filtering to the ordinary people. As the old cliché goes, albeit slightly modified, the, ‘rich were getting richer and the poor were not getting significantly better.’ It will surely be dishonest to suggest that there has not been changes to which the working people have benefited. This is why the phrasing is consciously put as, ‘the poor were not getting significantly better.’  Rather than debating whether or not the working people have benefited, the issue is whether the margin of benefit is what they could have legitimately expected. The issue is the degree to which the national income has been shared.    Impressive economic data and complicated figures of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange mean nothing if they do not translate themselves into another meal on the table, another block of houses and better provision of social goods. This seems to have been the problem with these so-called impressive figures. While economists and those like minded appeared in every other publication mouth watering about how ‘firmer the Rand is against major currencies’ and how trading has been buoyant, the ordinary person would be asking themselves whether things have changed between the day before and the day after the day before.  It is simplistic to argue that a working person in South Africa’s today is better than yesterday (however one defines yesterday). The question should be whether between today and yesterday the working person has gotten a legitimate share of the wealth of the country. These strikes, demonstrations and out ward public display of anger are simply an indication that something is terribly wrong with and in the structure of the economy. By structure, while the race question is clearly and manifestly important, the crux of the issue is the inability of the economy to be responsive to and deliver people’s social needs in the first place. That the majority of the people being affected are black and in the townships is a function of the structure of the economy. Put simply, the submission is that it is less the race issue than the structure of the economy that has led to these strikes, demonstration and out ward public display of anger. Dealing with the structure of the economy will of necessity address the race issue and indeed be able to respond to the social needs of the people.   Strikes and demonstrations have a class character. They reflect the level at which class consciousness is growing within a society. The rate of the strikes seems to suggest a growing consciousness of the people and their willingness to confront the state; state which gives manifestations of democracy and yet fails to attend to their social needs. The people are defining democracy in their own terms and giving it content.  To them democracy has become more than queuing in hipped elections and casting a vote  only to wait for another turn to do so. It is the demand, and not the willingness to listen to promises, of social goods and services. The Constitutional Court has so far twice refused to set the core minimum obligation of the state in delivery of socio-economic goods. This was in the judgments of the Constitutional Court in the Grootboom case, as well as the Treatment Action Campaign case. It is unfortunate. There is no doubt that having justiciable socio-economic rights in the Constitution is an important achievement towards a socially just South Africa, but this is then significantly weakened by refusal of the judiciary to set core minimum obligations for the state. The result is class consciousness, and class conscious frustrated people who confront the state and demand the provision of those social goods.    The argument that these strikes, demonstrations and out ward public display of anger are being driven by a third force must just be dismissed without more. Most of the people who are part of these demonstrations wear ANC and or its alliance partner’s regalia. They raise the picture of President Jacob Zuma, not in denunciation, but in affection and love, after all he is indeed a breath of fresh air. It is clear to an objective eye that these people are not implants, but committed and indeed disciplined members of the ANC, the alliance and or one of the alliance partners. The message that is coming out of this is that the consciousness of South Africans is growing by the day owing to their social conditions. They are being made to be who they are by what they confront on a day to day basis. They are graduation daily from the oldest University, the University of Life, realizing that what is needed is a state that responds to their social needs without hesitation. Given all this, it is clear that the future of South Africa will be the South African Communist Party, or a significantly reconfigured African National Congress which speaks apologetically, forthrightly and consistently working people’s language in practical terms and in theory abandoning its broad church characterization. There will be no difference between the SACP and the ANC.   The ideas of the SACP will be dominant within the ranks of the ANC and its alliance partners leading to practical demands which require new direction and character from and on the ANC. The SACP will become the new leader of the Alliance! The future of South African politics is playing itself out today and daily. That there will be significant changes, one can only doubt is if they refuse to look at the facts objectively, and indeed refuse to look at the history of social progress.   This article was originally published on page 8 of the Northwest Post http://www.nwpost.co.za/files/2nd%20Edition.PDF Nqobizitha Mlilo-in Zimbabwe   -- For more information please call MDC (Zimbabwe) Hon. Mr. Nelson Chamisa 0912940489 National Spokesperson or  Mr. Luke Tamborinyoka 0912104416 or mho...@yahoo.co.uk  or  Nqobizitha Mlilo (Zimbabwe) 00263913294724 or (South Africa) 0835274650 or 0731539555 or nml...@gmail.com or ml...@mdcregional.co.za "At each point in our proud history we have looked forward not backwards, we have stood for hope not fear, we have believed in love not hate, and we have never lost touch with our democratic values or sight of our democratic goals." ~ His Execellency, Prime Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Mr Morgan Richard Tsvangirai --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to yclsa-eom-forum@googlegroups.com or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email yclsa-eom-forum-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . 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