 SACP seeks united front among the Left
to effectively
challenge capitalism
Mazibuko K Jara, Sunday Independent, Johannesburg, 20 December 2009 SOUTH Africa is in desperate need of a radical, transformative political and economic programme. How far did the Polokwane special congress of the SACP go to put South Africa on such a path? This programme rests on four critical conditions:
While the focus of the media was on the debacle between Jeremy Cronin and Julius Malema, the SACP congress paid attention to some of the above questions. However, in the SACP's formulations, the ANC and its government remain important in achieving these goals. This focus on the ANC and alliance debates is a fundamental flaw: it immediately takes away SACP energy from its paper commitments to mobilise and organise workers, as does its participation in a capitalist government that is cut off from mass struggles in communities and the workplace, which could potentially challenge the capitalist policies of the ANC. This is not to ignore that the post-Polokwane ANC is understood popularly as being more progressive than the ANC under former president Thabo Mbeki. These shifts notwithstanding, the ANC remains a political party and a government that is not about to fundamentally transform the capitalist structure and system of South African society. Indeed, it has put forward a massive social delivery programme that, if it succeeds, will change for the better socio-economic conditions of the majority of the people. All this, the ANC assumes, can be delivered on the basis of a capitalist developmental state, a state that can play an effective role in growing the capitalist economy while also meeting social developmental goals. This remains the fundamental approach of the ANC to economic policy. And the SACP and Cosatu have fallen short, and are incapable of transcending alliance boardrooms to build the mass power required to mark a break with the ANC's dalliance with capital. The ANC cannot be ignored by any serious left project, nor can a serious left project be uncritical of the ANC, given its reluctance to challenge vested capitalist interests. A new Left will have to work out strategies to smartly, wisely and effectively challenge pro-capitalist policies. This is possible on the basis of organised mass strength. This is not easy, given that social movements are fragile and that the Left is weak, divided and ineffective. The vision of democratic socialist politics is an important starting point around which to rebuild a movement that can win immediate progressive demands, put forward pro-people policy alternatives and begin to challenge capitalism. The Cronin versus Malema template is far from such politics. In fact, it has the effect of demobilising the very mass base that needs to organise itself to contest existing policies. It does not project a confident SACP that can forge and foster a bold, open-ended and far-reaching socialist project. To begin this long and arduous path towards united anti-capitalist action by popular forces, we need a people's conference against capitalism. We need a process of bottom-up deliberation, and debate in which voices from below shape outcomes and collective action. But such a conference cannot be an event. It must aim to create a united anti-capitalist front around a shared programme of action while preserving the autonomy of constituent organisations. This challenges the broad Left to engage in such a process with modesty, conscious that it does not have all the answers to the complex challenges facing humanity - and conscious of the overwhelming reality of an ANC-dominated polity. This requires the Left to approach such a conference as one key moment in a longer process to build a vehicle for the self-organisation of the excluded, the exploited, the discriminated and poverty-stricken majority in South Africa who ultimately hold the power to radically transform South Africa along eco-socialist and participatory democratic lines. This is a project about consolidating the anti-capitalist confidence, voice and solidarity of the exploited and oppressed. It is not impossible. The big problems and crises we face present us with major possibilities. With massive resources, the bosses and their indunas are fighting an ideological battle to prevent any sensible, democratic debate within our country on economic policy evaluation and change. Our problems are structural. We have to transform the systemic features of our capitalist economy. The big economic and social problems of our country cannot be addressed without a change in economic policy. Not without a new state that works for the people and challenges capital. And not without mass struggles. The transformation of our economy and society critically requires popular anti-capitalist struggles that target both the state and capital. Many of the existing social movements and ongoing community protests hold the seeds of this. But they are not sufficient on their own. We must build on these struggles to rekindle the kind of mass movement of the 1980s which brought apartheid to an end. We must unite across townships, across political lines, across differences of the past. We can eventually unite all progressive forces among the poor and working class - not least those from social movements, Cosatu, the SACP - and many other progressive forces. This is what the envisaged conference of the Left is about - and not the self-serving SACP accusation that it is about building a "communist Cope" or a new left party. It is therefore time that debate over the conference of the Left moves away from this limited template.
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