Open Letter to General Secretary of the South Communist Party Dr Blade Nzimande from Justice Phatse Piitso Dear Blade Nzimande, THE MYTH OF WHITE MONOPOLY CAPITAL AND ITS CHARACTER AS THE MOST PERNICIOUS AND SINISTER FORM OF IMPERIALISM Please convey my regards to the leadership of the South African Communist party and its general membership across the landscapes of our beautiful democratic republic. I equally take the opportunity, to wish you the best and fruitful deliberations during the forthcoming plenary session of the 14th national congress of our party. Our generation is traversing the most difficult historical period of a transition from capitalism to socialism. The task before us is to seek solutions to the challenges posed by the contradictions of the present world order of modern monopoly capitalism. The supreme task of traversing society through the present historical period of a transition from capitalism to socialism is the most difficult one. I am convinced that there is no a task so difficult than that of society transcending itself from one stage of its development into the other. The author of the Communist manifesto Karl Marx says the following about the complexities of the transition from capitalism to socialism "what we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but on the contrary, just as it emerges from a capitalist society, which is thus in every respect economically, morally and intellectually still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges". The strategic question is how do we navigate society through this complex epoch of our transition from capitalism into socialism. How do we accelerate the momentum for revolutionary transformation of society into the future of socialism. Of importance is to appreciate the objective reality that the development of human society from one stage into the other is a historic necessity. That it is an inevitable outcome of our protracted struggles for freedom and equality. Being a proud member and an activist of our party, understanding the principle of democratic centralism, where the principle of the minority submitting to the majority is part of the organisational discipline, I hope you will understand the basis of my intervention. Our revolutionary theory can only be mastered through criticism and self criticism. The principle of criticism and self criticism, on the basis of Marxism Leninism, is the mainstay for the unity and cohesion of our revolutionary struggles. It provides a platform for a robust, sober, frank, and fearless evaluation of our own strength and weaknesses, and therefore to adapt to the ever changing conditions under which we are conducting our own struggles. The Communist party is a robust organisation for revolutionary ideas; it is vanguard party for power and hegemony. We have to make society understand that ours is the highest forms of democracy. You will concur with me that where the fundamental principles of our scientific revolutionary theory of Marxism Leninism are concerned, the question of who is right or wrong cannot be judged necessarily on the basis of the views of the majority. Lies cannot be turned into the truth simply because of the views of the majority nor will the truth be turned into lies simple because of the views of the minority. The growing tendency of capitulating the party into a movement of vulgar, using its membership as a measure of monopoly of the wisdom of Marxism Leninism, and believing that no one else outside our ranks except ourselves, is an eminent theoretician of Marxism Leninism, is self defeating. I think it is important to make it clear that to be a member of the communist party is not a ticket to make us professors of Marxism Leninism. Being an amorphous mass party as we are, there is no guarantee that all of our members are indeed genuine to the revolutionary course of our struggles for socialist transformation of society. The Communist party must be proud of those of our organic intellectuals, both from within and outside the ranks of our movement, for making repeated slogans calling for the second phase of our transition for radical socio economic transformation of our society. The revolutionary slogan itself sets the necessary momentum for the whole range of class forces within our society, to support our struggles for the building of the future socialist South Africa. The mistake of being seen to be accusing organic intellectuals, who most of them are from our own ranks, is a cancer which needs the healing of the soul. It is indeed wrong to accuse them of belonging to new whole horde of fashionable new self discovered Marxist Leninist foot soldiers, camouflaged with their offensive pseudo revolutionary theories to defend counter revolution. It is not enough to use our membership of the party for ideological gate keeping. Our leadership role is nothing else but to transform the power of our scientific revolutionary theory to resonate into the imaginations of all of humanity. We need to transform the power of our scientific revolutionary theory as an effective tool for the analysis of the concrete material conditions we find ourselves. Therefore calling our own "hypocrites," "camouflaged with pseudo scientific polemics, to undermine the real foundations of Marxism Leninism," is isolating the party from the masses of our people. Our leadership role is how do we transform the hegemony of the democratic bourgeoisie into the hegemony of the working class. How do we use the hegemony of our scientific revolutionary theory to lead society from the present day hostile historical period of capitalism into socialism. The polemics of abstract and dogmatic formulations, without profound concrete analysis of material conditions, will be like borrowing the bourgeoise the dialectics of our theory to fight a titanic battle against our revolutionary struggles. Our tradition is to establish concrete facts proceeding from concrete realities and not abstract postulates. My open letter responds to your recent polemics on various public platforms as a leader of the South African Communist party, creating doubts that white monopoly capital does not exist. I challenge you that white monopoly capital is not just a myth but the most pernicious and sinister forms of imperialism. The leader of the world communist movement Cde Vladimir Lenin states that without a proper analysis of material conditions and their internal and external contradictions, it is impossible to develop their proper understanding. He says "in order really to know an object, we must embrace, study all its sides, all its connections and mediations. We will never achieve this completely, but the demand for all sidedness is a safeguard against mistakes and rigidity". The theory of the Marxist Leninist political economy is the basis for the construction of our future socialist society. It is the premise for the understanding of the principal features of the development of the capitalist international monopoly capital. It is an antithesis of the reactionary character of the theory of the bourgeois political economy. It exposes the world wide phenomenon of the socio economic formations based on imperialist monopoly ownership patterns. In his historic preface to his famous book of the critique of the political economy, Karl Marx expresses a brilliant formulation about the essence of the very same important theoretical question in the following way "in the social production which men carries on, they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material forces of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society - the real foundation on which rises the legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness". Later Vladimir Lenin enriched and developed the strategies and tactics of Marxism during the era of imperialism which is the highest stage of capitalism. In his book imperialism the highest stage of capitalism, he developed a theoretical perspective based on the capitalist mode of production on how production and finance structures of rich industrial countries move to the poorer developing regions of the world. He argues that capitalism has escaped its three laws of motion through overseas imperialism. He argues that acquisition of colonies has enabled the capitalist economies to dispose of their unconsumed goods, to acquire cheap resources, and vent their surplus capital. He says that as the capitalist economies mature, as capital accumulates, and as profits rates fall, the capitalist economies are compelled to seize colonies and create dependence to serve as markets, investment outlets, and sources of food and raw materials. In competition with one another, they divide up colonial world in accordance with their relative strength. According to Lenin monopoly capital combines cartels, syndicates, and trusts which divide amongst themselves, first of all, the whole internal market of a country. But under capitalism the home market is bound up with the foreign market. He profoundly states that the critical element of fueling imperialism, is the decline of national economic competition and growth of monopolies. Based on Marxist law of concentration, what emerged was an aggregation of market power into the hands of few cartels, syndicate trusts, and merging with them, the capital of a dozen or so banks manipulating thousands of millions. Lenin profoundly so argues that monopoly is exactly the opposite of free competition. His thesis is that uneven economic and political development is the absolute law of capitalism. To suggest that there is no white monopoly capital or even to cast aspersions on those seen to be overemphasizing the obvious fact, that white monopoly capital is the fundamental cause of the present socio economic structural problems in the current period of our struggles, is not just a blatant lie, but a complete distortion of Marxism Leninism. By telling our people that there is no white monopoly capital is the same as telling them that there is no monopoly capital and therefore no imperialism. Monopoly is the highest stage of imperialism, which instead is the highest forms of capitalism. What we need to do, is to apply and develop our revolutionary theory to our own specific conditions of the South African situation. My understanding is that the revolutionary concept of apartheid colonialism of a special type, elucidates both the form and appearance of imperialism in our own peculiar historical realities. Apartheid colonialism of a special type is imperialism rooted in racial supremacy and exploitation. It is part of the manifestations of our class struggles which its essence is about a stage in the development of any society. Historical and dialectical materialism teaches us that racism is a phenomenal feature of modern monopoly capitalism. One of its principal strategies is to organize society on the basis of racial supremacy to keep the momentum for economic exploitation. I hope therefore that you agree with me that racism is about power, is about domination and superiority of one class over the other. In our situation, over the past three and half centuries, imperialism used racism as a tool to oppress and exploit the overwhelming majority of the people of our country. Throughout this historic period, white monopoly imperialism transcended itself into a superstructure, which became a dominant force within the political, social and economic sphere of the South African society. The apartheid white minority regime developed itself into a superstructure growing out of our economic base and therefore dominating our social relationships. Therefore the architecture of our superstructure confirms the historical realities of the existence of white monopoly capital. In other words, in its production relations, the South African white monopoly capital has been amassing surplus value, within the legal frameworks of its relationship with international monopoly capital. Therefore the domination of the white minority over ownership of our economy and general domination of the value system of our society is an expression of monopoly capital which is the highest form of imperialism. We need to appreciate that the theory of our political economy provides a scientific analysis of the foundations of capitalism based on our historical experiences. It is a theoretical basis which gives a historical necessity of the development of imperialist monopoly within the context of the white minority colonialism of a special type. The theory of our political economy demonstrates the genesis of power relations within the South African society. It is the dichotomy of dialectical relationships between the productive forces and their relationship to our society. The basis of the relationship between productive forces and relations in society during this period of apartheid neo colonialism of a special type is that white minority is still the dominant power house of the ownership of the commanding heights of our economy and influence in society. Therefore the history of the development of productive forces and their relationships is the history of the development of human society. It is a history that informs the overall objectives of our struggles for the second phase of our struggle for radical socio economic transformation of our society. The fundamental enemy during this stage of our national democratic revolution is white monopoly capital. It is the one, together with British conglomerates, which are sponsoring regime change movement in our country to undermine the gains of our revolution. It is unheard in history that a rating agency calls an urgent board meeting to reduce the economy of a country to a junk status on the basis that the President of the country used his constitutional prerogatives to reshuffle his cabinet. It is indeed unprecedented that a rating agency uses a reshuffle as an instrument to determine the economic performance of our country. When there are problems people will ask a simple question as to where is the communist party? They ask this question precisely because they believe that the party is the only vanguard capable of giving solutions to the problems facing society. The strategic objectives of our national democratic revolution remain to be the liberation of the black majority in general and the Africans in particular. Our political responsibility is to build a national democratic society. The way to achieve this objective is by ensuring that the South African communist party continues to be a standard bearer of the traditions and culture of the unity and cohesion of our liberation movement. We need not fall into a trap of not just reducing our party into a faction but more importantly a faction of a faction in the ANC. The political leadership role of our party is first and foremost about the unity of our national democratic revolution. This is a task which distinguishes the communist party from the rest of other political formations within the realms of our society; that of ensuring that the ANC continues to be a leader of our revolutionary project for transformation of society. There is no other political formation with the required capacity to lead our people other than the ANC. We need to unite our movement the ANC more than ever before. This is the supreme political responsibility shouldered on our party which is the expression of the highest of all forms of human organisation. A party comprised of a contingent of the most advanced elements in society. We are the most advanced political contingent guided by the scientific revolutionary theory of Marxism Leninism for transformation of society. A revolutionary theory which constitutes the basis for our ideological unity and cohesion We are duty bound to ensure that our revolutionary alliance led by the ANC continues to lead our people through this complex and hostile historical period of a transition from capitalism to socialism. Ours is a revolution based on the scientific theory of Marxism Leninism. . Phatse Justice Piitso is the former Ambassador to the republic of Cuba and the former provincial secretary of the SACP writing this article on his personal capacity. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] 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 [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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