Dear Cde Nqobizitha,
Thank you very much indeed for this response. It sharpens the
contradiction. Sharpening contradictions is what we have to do if we
are going to achieve dialectical propulsion. It is the struggle of
opposites that makes things dynamic, makes things go forward, and
allows us to escape from stagnation. For that reason I am very happy
that we are saying things that are opposite. In that spirit of
comradely polemic, let me continue to contradict you!
It is no part of the SACPs mission to "take over" anything. We are the
vanguard party of professional revolutionaries. We educate, organise
and mobilise but we do not substitute ourselves for the agency of the
masses. To do so would be to negate our own work, which is about
releasing popular agency.
We communists are servants, not masters. We do not exist to "run"
things, "control" things, or to "dominate". We are not like a bourgeois
party. We do not, as bourgeois parties do, "seek power" as a party.
Whether we find mass organisations already existing, or whether we
initiate them ourselves, the communists treat the masses with respect.
We not only respect the non-Party workers. We also respect the
non-proletarian classes, with which we are allied, because the working
class must have allies. We must never allow ourselves to become
isolated, as our enemies would wish us to be. This applies to the
Party, and to the working class, both.
We even respect our opponents, the monopoly capitalists. For as long as
they are there, we maintain communication and we continue to attempt to
lead them, even if we will never be allied to them. The vanguard Party
is partisan for the working class, but it gives leadership to the
entire society. We do not assume that the other classes in society are
about to disappear or that they can be made to disappear by us simply
disregarding them. The withering away of classes and the consequent
withering away of the state are not things that happen by default. They
will be the consequence of positive revolutionary activity, including
the NDR.
I think that you are saying that the building of socialism is something
that gets under way after the NDR is over. In other words, you are
saying, let's get this NDR out of the way and start building socialism.
I think this is a misconception. The NDR is the way that we are
building socialism. Through the NDR we are bringing the entire society
into what Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in the Communist Manifesto
called a "vast association of the whole nation". We are creating,
extending and consolidation institutions that have full national
extent, and that cross all boundaries of race and gender. These are the
institutions that will supply the bones and the muscles of socialism.
One of them is the African National Congress.
The ANC is something that we as Communists "found" in place as an
actually-existing entity when the CPSA was launched in 1921. The ANC
had been in existence for nine years already. The SA Labour Party had
been formed in 1908, the split of the Social Democrat worldwide
occurred in 1914 at the outbreak of the inter-Imperialist world war,
and the ISL was founded at that time, if I am not mistaken. The ICU was
founded in 1919. So all this happened in about the same span of time as
the MDC has now existed, for example. A very short period of time. So,
which came first is not vitally important. The important thing is the
development of the relationships and the roles that the different
components came to play.
The SACP invested enormous effort in assisting the ANC to embody the
class alliance that is the National Democratic Revolution. If it did
not exist, we would have to create another one. If we created another
one, it would have all the same problems that this one has, or worse.
Because the problems are derived from class struggle first and
foremost, and not from individual human failings as such.
We cannot do without alliance, comrade, and we cannot do without an
institution that will bear that alliance, and give that alliance
material existence. For South Africa, that institution is the ANC.
Now, where there is some confusion is around the idea of what you might
call "alliance with an alliance". The ANC is the embodiment of our
basic national-liberation class alliance. Why then do we need an
alliance with the ANC? The "tripartite alliance" is a shorthand. It
says that we are all in this together. But we as the SACP are already
twice allied: once because of the underlying class alliance, and twice
because we are individual ANC members and exercise leadership in that
way. We have actually built the ANC to be what it is, and willingly so.
In my opinion, we do not now need a third bite at the cherry, in the
form of a "High Command" level where we would sit again with the ANC as
separate interests. I don't personally see the point in that, and I can
foresee a lot of potential problems with it, should it ever come to
pass.
Further, Cde Mlilo, if we were ever to abandon and shun the ANC, what
would happen to it? It, our creation, would go lock,stock and barrel to
the bourgeois class enemy. We and our allies would have to rush to
create another "ANC" because we still need a vehicle for our class
alliance.
If I may, Cde Mlilo, let me ask you to think about Zimbabwe in this
light, and give us some idea of what you are thinking, about the way
forward in your country. Where is the class alliance that can succeed,
in Zimbabwe? Why are you all still locked in conflict between
structures? Do the many structural conflicts that we see correspond at
all with class interests? Do the working class have any mass
organisations that are worthy of the name, i.e. that are democratic,
mass membership organisations as opposed to funded NGOs?
Yours in struggle!
VC
Nqobizitha Mlilo M wrote:
Comrades
Cde Dominic
greetings from the Republic of Zimbabwe, and the hopeful people and
members of the Movement for Democratic Change, ably led by President
Tsvangirai.
Thank you for
the compliments.
I take your
views with great appreciation. Clearly you applied your mind.
However, it
seems to me that you have slightly missed a very salient point in the
article.
The issue am
raising is not which political party and or movement takes power in its
raw and unclassed sense, it is indeed class power am referring to.
The opinion
is that precisely because the South African political-economy is in
social progression every day (and these demonstrations on service
delivery are evidence of such.), the class consciousness of the people
of South Africa as a whole is growing daily. This is happening
organically, that is, with people learning from their material
conditions, and at times being led by the SACP.
In this
growth of class consciousness, it is the working class that is gaining
more and more ground, and the pretences of other classes that are
opposed to the working class are being exposed daily. The people of
South Africa are beginning to reject the disempowering and misleading,
sophistry bourgeoisie description of democracy
The alliance
of the classes that you refer to has a life span; to the extent they
have a minimum program of action together, they will be in alliance,
and indeed it is correct for the working class to be in that alliance.
However, this
very same alliance over time empowers the working class, that the
working class makes demands more and more leading to a clash of the
class interests. This has already started with these demonstrations and
referring to. By the time there is an overt clash of class interests,
and the clash enters the central stage and or becomes definitive, am
arguing that the working class in South Africa would have gained the
support of many that they will be able to defeat their class opponents
and indeed some of those with whom they have been in alliance. The
working class is winning critical numbers of the people of South Africa
(which is clearly happening now given that not all people who are part
of these demonstrations are members of the SACP, and indeed ANC
(remember the ANC says it has never been a socialist party), but these
people are speaking the language of the SACP and its class demands)
It is then
that am arguing that the SACP will take over. It is happening daily.
Put
differently the working class will be definitive in the manner in which
the South African state will be run, and this will happen through their
vehicle, the SACP. There will almost be no need for the ANC because it
would have finished its historical task.
For emphasis
sake, it is the working class expressed in the SACP that will be in
control of the South African state and therefore it is not power for
the sake of power. It is the working class, and their class power that
will be in charge. The dominant ideas of the SACP are taking root in
the people of South Africa. The dominant ideas of the SACP will define
the direction of South Africa, as opposed to the current status quo in
which the direction of the South African state is a product of class
alliance compromises given that the ANC is the leader of the alliance (
as opposed to the SACP)
I hope this
helps.
With
Communist love from Zimbabwe!
We understand
that we will never be free until there is a Communist Party in Zimbabwe.
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Dominic
Tweedie <[email protected]>
wrote:
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
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