Cde
Thanks for highlighting this point I had also noted it. Now that the GS has
spoken we need to go out to the masses.
Communist regards
Mr Sifiso S. Ntanzi
Provincial Research Technician
ND Agric: Animal Production
Tel 012 672 9118
Fax 012 665 1563
Email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cell 079 878 2323
>>> "Dominic Tweedie" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2008/11/06 01:52 PM >>>
"It is however important that not all of those who were in the past
associated with this project want to leave the ANC. We welcome the fact
that these comrades are committed to subject themselves to the
discipline of the ANC as well as to the Polokwane resolutions and
mandate."
_____
Umsebenzi Online, Volume 7, No. 19, 5 November 2008
In this Issue:
'The good boys and girls, the boss-class instruments': The 2008
dissidents in their historical context
Red Alert:
'The good boys and girls, the boss-class instruments': The 2008
dissidents in their historical context
Blade Nzimande, General Secretary
"And now the wedge-drivers who had been working behind closed doors
against the whole liberation movement and its policies have come out
into the open. They are part of the impure load which every revolution
carries and when that load is thrown aside the journey to victory is
always a swifter one." ('The Enemy Hidden Under the Same Colour')
The above is an extract from a statement released by the SACP and
published in The African Communist, 2nd Quarter, 1976, in the wake of
the expulsion of the Gang of Eight from the ANC. But this statement
remains as relevant as ever today, especially in the wake of the
dissidents that have just left the ANC to form a new, oppositionist,
political party. This statement is a powerful reminder that in our
journey towards the victory of the national democratic revolution there
will always be an 'impure load' within our ranks that may now and again
have to be 'thrown aside', and when that happens 'the journey to victory
is always a swifter one'.
The SACP has correctly characterized the activities of the 2008
dissidents as the continuation of the aims and objectives of the 1996
class project by other means. It is however important that not all of
those who were in the past associated with this project want to leave
the ANC. We welcome the fact that these comrades are committed to
subject themselves to the discipline of the ANC as well as to the
Polokwane resolutions and mandate.
The SACP has also correctly stated that members and cadres of our
movement must not be distracted by the emergence of this new grouping,
but to focus on the key challenges facing our revolution, including
preparing for an ANC overwhelming electoral victory in 2009.
However, it is important that we expose this grouping for what it really
is and also locate it historically as part of a trend of similar
factions and groupings in the history of our liberation movement. We
need to point out that they now want to pose as champions for rights
that they actively undermined and trampled upon whilst they were in
leadership positions in the ANC.
1. A spoilt and compradorial class elite
The 2008 dissidents are a coalition of class elites who benefited
immensely through the leadership positions they held in the ANC, and in
the case of some, in the SACP and COSATU as well. The core of these was
part of the 1996 class project that became dominant in both our movement
and the state. They forged a different and new tripartite alliance
between themselves occupying key government positions, sections of the
domestic and global capitalist classes, and sections of the emergent
black capitalist class.
Many in this grouping effectively used their positions in the ANC and
the state to accumulate wealth, dispense patronage and created a
hierarchy of 'personalized followings' at various levels and components
of our movement.
Indeed not all of the black sections of the capitalist class have
accumulated their wealth through these means, nor were they active
participants in the consolidation of the 1996 class project in the state
and the ANC.
But for the dissidents, the loss of leadership positions, especially in
the ANC NEC, and some in the SACP and COSATU structures, means loss of
access to the state institutions thus depriving them of the major means
of private accumulation and capacity to dispense patronage.
This grouping had also actively sought to demobilize the ANC, turn it
into a narrow electoralist political party, and mobilize our people only
as 'voters' during election periods, so that they, as 'leaders',
continue to access state power and amass economic resources.
Whilst the current context of this regressive dissidence is now
different, given the fact that the ANC is now a ruling party, it is
however important to understand this grouping for what it is, by also
examining its historical precedents, in order to deal with it swiftly
and effectively.
2. Anti-communism and anti-worker sentiment
One thread that runs through all the groupings that have broken away or
engaged in factionalist activity in our liberation movement is their
anti-communism and anti-worker attitude, often expressing itself in
exactly the same way as that of the apartheid regime and white monopoly
capital. Like their predecessors, the 2008 dissidents have turned their
anti-communist volume even louder, precisely at time when there is a
concerted, but desperate, campaign by bourgeois media to try and project
the ANC as having been 'captured' by communists and COSATU.
2.1 The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) in the 1920s
The ICU was founded by Clements Kadalie in 1919 and was by the early
1920s the biggest African trade union (if not mass) movement in South
Africa at the time, with an estimated membership of over 100 000. At its
National Council on 16 December (!) 1926, Kadalie launched a scathing
attack on the Communist Party of South Africa and a resolution was
passed that "no officer of the ICU shall be a member of the Communist
Party". Kadalie accused the communists of interfering with the internal
affairs of the ICU, though communists were members and in many instances
duly and democratically elected leadersf of the ICU.
In response to these developments, the then Communist Party of South
Africa (CPSA), in December 1926, had amongst other things this to say
about the anti-communist actions of the ICU:
"At this critical moment, when the Government of Hertzog, Roos and Co is
planning new slave laws for the native masses of South Africa, traitors
and dupes of the Bosses are trying to break up the only effective
organization you have which is capable of putting up a real fight
against oppression and slavery - the ICU.
"Messrs Kadalie, Champion and Co., proceeded to destroy the fighting
energy of the ICU by expelling... JA La Guma, EJ Khaile and J Gomas...
These three comrades were expelled for no other reason than because they
were active members of the Communist Party.
"The Communist Party has persistently fought for a united front of all
workers and oppressed against the common enemy, the capitalists
"The Communist Party was and is the staunchest friend of the ICU
"Comrades! You are told that one cannot serve two masters. Your expelled
officials have never served two masters, but only one - the downtrodden
workers of Africa
"Who are the people who serve two masters? Kadalie, Champion and the
other 'good boys' who seek to split your ranks in the midst of the enemy
attack!
"Do not allow 'good boys' and other boss-class instruments to get
control of the ICU"
Later, an open letter by the expelled (communist) members, published in
the then Communist Party's newspaper, The South African Worker, our
comrades said then:
"As recent events clearly prove there is a conspiracy afoot against your
welfare. Large amounts (!)have been spent upon the conventions (!) of
the (ICU) National Council, and yet nothing has been done to give you
the lead to better your conditions, economically and politically
(emphases added). Actually the reverse is the case
"By our removal the reactionaries have deluded themselves into the
belief that the channels whereby the correct interpretation of the will
of the masses could have been expressed are blocked; but they have
reckoned without your determination that the last word shall be with the
rank and file"
Although the circumstances somehow different, but how strikingly similar
is the posture of Kadalie to that of today's conventioneers, the
inheritors' of Kadalie's anti-communist conventions of the 1920s,
including the fact that large amounts of money were spent on these
conventions in order to frustrate the revolutionary character of the
trade union movement? Like the 'good boys' and 'boss-class instruments'
of the 1920s ICU, this grouping is embarking on attempts to divide and
weaken COSATU, using renegade former leaders of COSATU!
The ICU quickly declined after this and by the early 1930s it had
completely disappeared. One can only imagine what would have happened if
the Polokwane outcome was different and today's conventioners were still
inside our movement, including in the trade union movement?
2.2 The PAC in 1959
The leaders of the PAC, led by Robert Sobukwe, broke away from the ANC
after successively having failed to be elected into ANC's leadership
positions in order to trying and redirect the ANC away from its evolving
non-racial positions. The PAC also broke away because of the role of
non-Africans in the Congress Alliance, and most significantly its hatred
for communists. Its hatred for communists has recently been repeated by
its sole MP and former PAC President.
The PAC also tried to build a right-wing anti-South African Congress of
Trade Union (SACTU) union movement to counter SACTU activities,
especially during the underground days. A key figure in these attempts
was one of the leading PAC founders, Nelson Nana Mahomo, who was
secretly working with the CIA sponsored African-American Labour Centre
(AALC) established in 1964. The AALC focused on building reactionary and
alternative trade unions, as part of an offensive to separate African
trade unions from progressive liberation and independence movements.
Though Mahomo was subsequently expelled by the PAC, he was in 1982
formally employed to head the AALC's programme to 'support' black trade
unions in South Africa, ostensibly to undermine the fledgling FOSATU
unions then.
Reminding us about the history of the PAC, a document produced by the
ANC Department of Information and Publicity in July 1998 ('The Pan
Africanist Congress of Azania A viable alternative or a flat
spare-tyre?') poignantly captured the character of this organization:
"When much of the key leadership of the ANC in the Transvaal was
detained in 1956 and charged in the lengthy (1956-1961) Treason Trial,
the Leballo grouping saw their chance to challenge for provincial
leadership positions.
"The group actively and publicly opposed the ANC and Congress Alliance
1958 national stay-at-home, called in protest against the whites-only
elections. For this act of treachery they won the warm approval of the
white media, they were praised as being "the most responsible native
leaders."
"The PAC's mission in life is to be a rival to the ANC, an alternative,
a spare-tyre. But mere rivalry is never going to be the basis for
building an effective organisation around a strategic perspective and a
dynamic programme of action. Wanting to be somehow different from the
ANC is not the basis for developing and nurturing an effective
leadership cadre. The spare-tyre mentality results in a politics of
opportunism and in leadership bankruptcy".
Just like the current grouping failed to (re) capture the ANC in
Polokwane, the PAC decided to splinter from the ANC, and claim to be the
true custodians of the 'ANC of 1912'. The current grouping is similarly
being given glowing accolades from the same white owned media as true
democrats who will deliver South Africa from what they refer to as the
'grip of the ANC's one Party dominance'.
Indeed the PAC has since witnessed multiple splits and is now
practically a dead organization, an illustration of what happens when
organizations are founded on opportunism to fight for positions, than
acting on a principled programme.
2.3 The Gang of 8 of the 1970s
Yet another reactionary grouping tried to capture or split the ANC in
the 1970s on the platform of, amongst others, the role of communists in
the broader liberation movement. This group came to be known as the Gang
of 8, because of the prominence of 8 of its leaders leading this
offensive. The Gang of 8 was subsequently expelled from the ANC in 1975.
Reflecting on this experience in 1976, the SACP Central Committee, in a
statement titled 'The Enemy Hidden Under the Same Colour', had this to
say about this group:
"The issues on which they have chosen to attack the liberation movement
are as old as the struggle itself. The slander that the ANC is run by
the Communist Party is not something new; it has always been spread by
the racists and those who act as their agents. And it has always been
designed to weaken the people's struggle. As early as the 1920's,
liberals like Ballinger helped destroy the ICU by raising the banner of
anti-Communism, and spreading scare stories about 'Communist
take-overs'. In the late 1950s, the breakaway PAC group also used the
white liberal parrot-cry that the 'the Communist were running the ANC'
in an attempt to destroy it".
For example in one of its statements, the Gang of 8, spewed the same
anti-communist bile that we see re-emerging with the 2008 conventioners:
"The SACP relies entirely on using the ANC as its front organization",
so they said in the early 1970s. This Group also ended up attacking the
outcomes of the Morogoro conference and yet was a part of that same
conference at which their narrow nationalist positions were defeated.
Sounds familiar!
Of particular significance was the Gang of 8's attack on the integrity
of the ANC leadership. In one of their attacks they said "Criticism of
official ANC policy and practice has come to be regarded within the
leadership circles as nothing less than treason". Of course what the
Gang of 8 actually meant by this was that since they were not dominant
in that ANC leadership, they therefore could not accept its legitimacy
and decisions! The Gang of 8 was launching this offensive at the time
when the apartheid regime was tightening repression against our people
especially in the wake of the 1973 workers' strikes, and increasingly
labeling the ANC as a front for the communists.
The 2008 conventioners are similarly intensifying their attacks on the
SACP at a time when there is intensified capitalist media attacks on the
ANC post-Polokwane as an organization 'controlled by the SACP and
COSATU'. Indeed these false claims are part of attempts to delegitimize
the Polokwane outcomes and the leadership elected there.
Indeed, in his closing remarks to the Morogoro Conference, the then
President of the ANC, Cde Oliver Tambo, had warned about the dangers of
such elements within our movement:
"(Delegates must) wage a relentless war against disrupters and defend
the ANC against provocateurs and enemy agents. Defend the revolution
against enemy propaganda, whatever form it takes. Be vigilant comrades.
The enemy is vigilant. Beware of the wedge-driver, the man who creeps
from ear to ear, carrying a bag full of wedges, driving them in between
you and the next man, between a group and another, a man who goes round
creating splits and divisions. Beware of the wedge-driver, comrades.
Watch his poisonous tongue".
2.4 Inkatha yeNkululeko YeSizwe
Another organization which was formed with the consent of the ANC,
albeit under different conditions, was the Inkatha yeNkululeko YeSizwe,
now refashioned as the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).
The IFP, founded in 1975, was quickly captured by an anti-ANC elite, an
alliance made up of some of the most backward elements with the ranks of
KZN traditional leaders, the bureaucrats occupying senior positions in
the KwaZulu bantustan and business beneficiaries from the KwaZulu
Territorial Authority, a forerunner to the KwaZulu bantustan. It
exploited Zulu culture and traditions to the full, and sought to build a
movement whose primary goal, in collaboration with the apartheid regime,
was to destroy the national liberation movement.
At the heart of the IFP's offensive was a rabid anti-communism,
literally and unashamedly reflecting similar accusations by the
apartheid regime that 'the ANC was a communist front'. The IFP perhaps
went furthest than many of its predecessor splinters from the ANC, by
fully collaborating with the apartheid regime in unleashing one of the
worst violent counter-revolutionary warfare against the liberation
movement. This culminated in its attempts to try and derail the 1994
elections, by collaborating with the most fascist right-wing in South
Africa to try and violently derail our transition to democracy.
In 1986, hardly a year after the formation of COSATU, the IFP, funded by
the apartheid regime through Adriaan Vlok's departmental funds,
established a right-wing labour federation, The United Workers Union of
South Africa (UWUSA), as a direct counter to COSATU. Similarly the 2008
splinter from the ANC is also planning to establish a labour federation
directly aimed at weakening and undermining COSATU. This is
interestingly being done by people who had in the past claimed to
subscribe to the idea of one single labour federation for South Africa,
but in their desperation to undermine worker and alliance unity they
have thrown those principles out of the window!
The IFP has continued its anti-communist rhetoric, even blaming the SACP
for the dissolution of the Scorpions, as one of its MPs, J van der Merwe
recently claimed in a parliamentary debate on the dissolution of the
Scorpions on 23 October 2008:
"It is also clear after Polokwane who now really governs South Africa -
the South African Communist Party... The silent Polokwane Communist Coup
is taking South Africa in a new and ominous direction".
2.5 The United Democratic Movement
After his expulsion from the ANC, Bantu Holomisa, together with former
National Party member, Roelf Meyer, formed the United Democratic
Movement (UDM). Of course it is a known fact that the UDM is a small
organization on the fringes of South Afrcan politics, whose only claim
to fame is that its leader has become a permanent commentator on the ANC
and the alliance it leads, rather than focusing on the work of the UDM.
Like the other splinters, its concern is also with the communists, as
Holomisa claims in a speech in October 2008:
"South Africa doesn't deserve a one-party state, and we certainly don't
deserve to be governed by ANC puppets controlled by communists who don't
even have the guts to participate in elections"
3. The 2008 Conventioners
The latest splinter from the ANC joins this long list of anti-communist
and anti-working class crusaders. It was therefore not an accident that
the ANC allies, the SACP and COSATU, during the dominance of this
faction in our movement, were marginalized and even provoked to walk out
of the Tripartite Alliance. It was a deliberate strategy driven by a
core of anti-communist and anti-working class elements that are now
pursuing the same objectives, but fortunately now outside the ANC.
The SACP is therefore not surprised that the 2008 splinter group has
found common cause with the likes of the DA, IFP, UDM and other
opposition parties. One common factor that draws them together is their
anti-communist and anti-working class political outlook. This ganging up
is further proof that there is more in common between the dissidents and
the likes of DA than with the Polokwane resolutions and mandate.
Like Nana Mahomo and UWUSA before, the 2008 dissidents have tasked the
discredited Willie Madisha to build a new federation to counter COSATU,
and has recently been quoted by the Daily News as having said,
"We are going to have the biggest union in the country. And that is not
going to take time. Give us six months and you will see."
When Holomisa formed the UDM, the ANC, in February 1997, made the
following interesting observation:
"When journalists ask Holomisa whether his 'new party' will be to the
left or right of the ANC, they are met with a blank stare. Holomisa, of
course, has no intention of limiting his opportunism to the left or
right. He will only say that 'every Jack and Jill will be welcome' in
the new party".
This is true of the 2008 dissidents' rallying cry "All those wanting to
defend the constitution are welcome"!
The ANC Document "The rise and fall of Bantu Holomisa" makes the
following interesting observations, which we paraphrase, about Holomisa
which strikes startling similarities with the dissidents:
Holomisa sought to organize the disgruntled trade unionist in the NUM
associated with the 'Five Madoda', to mobilize and impress students with
rhetoric, he sought to abuse the challenges confronting the democratic
state at the time and more so tried to "mobilise around a sense of
dissent and grievance against the ANC".
"And, above all, he tries to present himself as the victim of an ANC
"run by a cabal bent on conducting a witchunt", says the document.
Like all other splinters before, the current splinter claims to be the
true representative of the traditions of the ANC and projects itself as
more democratic than the ANC. Yet, its leaders have walked out of the
ANC principally because they cannot accept the democratic outcomes of
the Polokwane Conference!
The dissidents campaign on a ticket of fighting against corruption,
superior morality, better democratic values, but the jury is still out
as to who the really corrupt and immoral are, and history may answer
this question sooner rather than later!
4. The urgent tasks of South African communists and all SACP
structures
In the light of the above, the first task of all communists is to engage
all our structures and properly explain the true character of the 2008
dissidents, and also understand them from a holistic and historical
perspective. Like all their predecessors they will fail to weaken and
defeat the ANC, just like they will fail in their attempts to weaken the
SACP.
Nevertheless their failure will not happen on its own. As we have done
over the past 87 years of our existence, it is also going to be critical
focus our energies on the positive campaigns of the SACP and the
Alliance.
Firstly, we need to intensify our Red October Campaign to build street
committees and mobilize our people for effective participation in local
governance.
To this end, we need to ensure that over the next two months Red Forums
are convened throughout the length and breadth of our country. The tasks
of these Red Forums must be:
* Use these forums as springboards for building street, village
and block committees as our basis for fighting crime
* Explain and engage our people on the key policy priorities as
agreed to at our Alliance Summit in May this year; fighting for decent
work and sustainable livelihoods, fighting crime, prioritization of
health and education, and rural development, including accelerating land
and agrarian transformation for food production and security.
* Explain to the workers and the poor of our country the real
agenda and character of the 2008 dissidents
Secondly, we should use these Red Forums as one of our major platforms
for the ANC's election campaign, coupled with intensified door-to-door
work in all areas where our Party has a presence.
Thirdly, we must convene district councils throughout the country, to
get our structures ready for the election campaign. In addition these
councils must be used to empower all communists to properly understand
the 2008 dissidents and be able to go out and engage the workers and the
poor of our country.
Fourthly, we need to ensure that SACP provincial and district leaders
participate and do indeed address the shop steward councils currently
being convened by COSATU throughout the country.
Fifthly, and most important, we expect all cadres of our Party, to
defend and protect the unity of the ANC and our alliance. It is for this
reason that our Politburo has taken a decision to deal firmly and
swiftly with any SACP who may become part of, or assist, the ANC
dissidents. Our alliance is only with the ANC and COSATU!
In the process of doing all of the above we need to ensure that all of
our 1600 branches convene branch general meetings as part of our
mobilisational effort.
In fact what we may be dealing with here is the new face of
counter-revolution in South Africa.
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