The TNA-edted text of this article was previloulsy circulated here as "Be the Vanguard! Don't Go It Alone!" This is the text as it was submitted to The New Age. _____
Published by the Communist University, 25 July 2017 (A version of this article was published in The New Age on 24 July 2017) Workers are made to choose The SACP's decision goes against Rosa Luxemburg's advice "The modern proletarian class doesn't carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight... That's exactly what is laudable about it, that's exactly why this colossal piece of culture, within the modern workers' movement, is epoch-defining: that the great masses of the working people first forge from their own consciousness, from their own belief, and even from their own understanding the weapons of their own liberation." - Rosa Luxemburg The SACP is fresh from its 14th National Congress, where various resolutions were adopted, including its main one of contesting elections outside of the ANC-led alliance. This resolution contrasts sharply with what has been the custom since the first democratic elections in 1994; and it brings the class question within the National Liberation Movement back into play. The SACP's historical mission has been its vanguard role in relation to the working class led by COSATU; in relation to the Civic Organisation, SANCO; and especially in relation to the mass liberation movement: the ANC. The SACP's new decision puts a dramatic question in front of us: Will there now be a Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) without a vanguard political party? And a Communist Party that is disconnected from the organised working-class mass? At present, practically all of the names of national leadership of the alliance are in some way shared between the various national executive structures, even though these are distinct and independent organisations. Cross-membership within the alliance is the norm and not the exception, at all levels. It is conspicuous in the composition of the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC); in the Central Committee (CC) membership of the SACP; among national leadership of various unions; and in the progressive federation of the organised working class, COSATU. The SACP's decision to contest state power through elections has underlined the centrality of the working class. Both ANC and SACP will be courting the same working class vote. The battle is going to divide the working class; it is not going to harmonise the working class. Nor is the battle going to advance the working class towards hegemony. Rosa Luxemburg, in "Reform or Revolution," explains: ".people who pronounce themselves in favour of the method of legislative reform, in place of, and in contradistinction to, the conquest of political power and social revolution do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modifications of the old society. If we follow the political conceptions of revisionism, we arrive at the same conclusion that is reached when we follow the economic theories of revisionism. Our programme becomes not the realisation of socialism, but the reform of capitalism; not the suppression of the system of wage labour, but the diminution of exploitation, that is, the suppression of the abuses of capitalism instead of the suppression of capitalism itself." The working class should not be divided or defocused, but it should remain on course to achieve its strategic political goal - the dictatorship of the proletariat - because "Trade unions are nothing more than the organised defence of labour power against the attacks of profit. They express the resistance offered by the working class to the oppression of capitalist economy. "...trade unions have the function of influencing the situation in the labour-power market. But this influence is being constantly overcome by the proletarianisation of the middle layers of our society, a process which continually brings new merchandise on the labour market. The second function of the trade unions is to ameliorate the condition of the workers. That is, they attempt to increase the share of the social wealth going to the working class. This share, however, is being reduced with the fatality of a natural process, by the growth of the productivity of labour..." So it was in Rosa Luxemburg's time, and so it remains today. Cde Sibusiso. S. Mchunu; #082 6388 622 Mchunu is the Chairperson of JHB COSATU Local, a CEPPWAWU shopsteward, LoB Secretary of CEPPWAWU Germiston Local and the Chairperson of SACP VD Southgate branch, writing in his own 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. 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