Umsebenzi Online, Volume 9, No. 3, 3 February 2010
In this Issue:
- Let's debate, but let's debate in a way that unifies our movement and
strengthens practical programmes of action
Red Alert
Let's debate, but let's debate in a way that unifies our movement and
strengthens practical programmes of action
The SACP Political Bureau held its first meeting for 2010 last Friday.
The meeting took place at Liliesleaf in Rivonia, the historic site from
which the secret High Command of Umkhonto We Sizwe operated until its
arrest at this venue in 1963. It was this location that gave the
name "Rivonia" to the famous trial that ensued. The property is now
being turned into a museum and conference centre with the support of,
amongst others, UNESCO.
Liliesleaf has a particular symbolic significance for the SACP - not
only was it the site at which legendary names in our Party's history
operated, but it was the clandestine SACP that purchased the former
small-holding in the early 1960s. Unfortunately for the SACP, not only
are we now too late to put in a restitution claim, but it seems that
the clandestine SACP-run trust that originally bought the property sold
it in the 1960s to a private buyer!
Assessing the SACP's December 2009 Special National Congress
At last Friday's PB, we used the occasion to evaluate, amongst others
things, the Party's Special National Congress in Polokwane in December
last year. We noted that the Congress was characterised by a very high
degree of inner-Party unity. The divisions within the Party, which some
of the media had been predicting and, in some cases, promoting,
completely failed to materialise.
However, as we all know, this didn't prevent much of the media from
still ignoring the substance of what happened at our Congress. Instead
there was an inordinate focus on one minor event in which two
individuals, who had been involved in persistent and derogatory,
personalised attacks on SACP leadership, were briefly booed by some of
our delegates. It was an unfortunate but unplanned episode that would
have passed almost un-remarked but for the deliberate melodrama that
soon followed. A few individuals stormed onto the stage, and in the
full glare of rolling TV cameras, SACP chairperson, cde Gwede Mantashe,
was accosted and subjected to loud abuse - much to the delight of
head-line seeking journalists.
This melodrama was one thing, more unfortunate were some of the leaks
and analyses that followed. For a few days afterwards, there was even
an implausible attempt to suggest that this episode marked a widening
rift in the relationship between the SACP on the one hand, and the
entire ANC on the other!
All of this was the symptom of something else. One of the key
achievements of our Congress was precisely to single out in debates and
resolutions the central threat to the unity and programme of our
Alliance. In particular, our Congress singled out what we
called "Kebble-ism" - namely, a dangerous axis between unscrupulous
business people (black and white) on the one hand, and a bullying,
chauvinistic populist tendency in parts of our movement on the other.
Behind the headline stories of high-life parties and the flaunting of
ill-gained wealth, lies the sordid reality of manipulative
sponsorships, wheeling and dealing, organisational factionalism,
arm-twisting and the general subversion of our democratic order.
At the PB meeting, comrades all noted very widespread endorsement from
outside of our ranks for our raising of these concerns. What has
especially been appreciated has been the SACP's evident readiness to
stand up against this dangerous tendency. We have received many
messages and other indications of support for our stand. These have
come from within the ANC, from the workers' movement, from the youth
sector and, indeed, from many others who do not share our ideological
views, but who are appalled by corruption, bullying and chauvinism.
The PB resolved that the SACP would continue to work to strengthen our
alliance on the basis of our shared programme of action and priorities.
We are heartened by the recent ANC NEC lekgotla's strong endorsement of
exactly the same position.
The nationalisation debate - how to conduct it…and how NOT to conduct it
Programmatically, the SACP is committed to struggling for a socialist
South Africa. It's our "core business", if you like. It's the reason
for our existence. The socialist future we aspire to is certainly an
ideal, however we are not interested in consuming endless hours in
speculatively fashioning an elaborate blue-print for some distant
future. This is the kind of futile exercise Marx and Engels always
dismissed as merely "utopian". Our socialism is fundamentally about
waging a struggle, here and now, with and in defence of the workers and
poor.
But how do we wage that struggle? First of all, it isn't and cannot be
some secret plot. We are openly socialist, and (at least since February
2, 1990) we have been legally socialist as well. Our socialist struggle
is not a conspiracy (you can't possibly build socialism out of a
conspiracy). It is certainly NOT about "capturing" the ANC by
infiltrating communists onto ANC electoral lists! If communists enjoy
popular support and endorsement from within ANC structures that's
great. But they serve in ANC positions as ANC members. We want to have
capable, honest and hard-working ANC cadres as ANC leaders - some will
be communists, many will not be. Rather a capable non-communist ANC
comrade in a leadership position, we say, than a less capable ANC
member who happens to be a communist.
At the heart of the socialism to which we are committed lies the
struggle to build capacity for and momentum towards increasing
democratic social control over the key resources of our society. In
this regard, we are certainly not opposed, in principle, to state
ownership ("nationalisation") as one possible means towards advancing
social control over key resources. But there are several important
qualifications that are required.
In the first place, state ownership of key sectors of the economy is,
in itself, not necessarily a progressive still less anti-capitalist
move - the apartheid regime and various fascist states had extensive
state ownership. Key financial institutions in the UK and US currently
are also now effectively "nationalised". In all of these cases, state
ownership has not been about rolling back the logic of private profits
for a few in the interests of meeting the social needs of the majority
- but rather bureaucratic interventions to rescue capitalism in crisis.
The recent bank buy-outs in some advanced capitalist countries have
been correctly described by mainstream economists as "socialism for
capitalists", while the majority are burdened with a huge national debt
to pay for the bail-outs.
In the second place, as the many recent scandals in our own parastatals
have underlined, public sector ownership, on its own, is no guarantee
that this public property will not be plundered by senior management
for their own private accumulation purposes. Primitive accumulation
rent-seeking is one of the major plagues currently afflicting our
democracy and it lies at the root of many sectarian battles and
disputes within our broader movement. It is absolutely essential that
we wage an intensified battle against it. It would be the height of
hypocrisy, by the way, to be calling for "nationalisation" on the one
hand, while being intimately involved in the private plundering of
public resources on the other.
In advancing our perspective on socialisation, including progressive
nationalisation, the SACP fully intends to locate this advocacy, and
any other discussion on nationalisation/socialisation, within the
context of our shared alliance strategic priorities - jobs and
sustainable livelihoods; health-care; education; rural development; and
fighting crime and corruption. We must all guard against the
opportunistic appropriation of "nationalisation", treating it as a
stand-alone issue and using it as a rhetorical badge of "radicalism".
Any progressive call for nationalisation needs be a coherent and
do-able part of an overall democratic programme.
As the SACP, a party of socialism within an ANC-led alliance, we seek
to encourage a growing appreciation, from among the broad mass of our
people, including the broad ranks of the ANC, of the impossibility of
achieving fundamental progress on our shared priorities without rolling
back the dominance of capital. As far as the SACP is concerned, we want
to make this a non-sectarian and practical discussion, rather than
simply an "ideological" assertion. Grand-standing doesn't help.
Threatening comrades that you won't vote for them in future elective
conference unless they support your position is infantile and unhelpful.
For instance, the discussion around the transformation of the mining
sector needs to be located within the broader challenge of putting our
country onto a new job-creating growth path. It needs to be about the
role of a transforming mining sector (and indeed a wider
minerals-energy-finance complex) within government's emerging
Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP). How we transform the mining
sector should be located within such a broader discussion and not be
based on one-third of a de-contextualised clause in the Freedom Charter.
But the question of socialisation extends far beyond just a
narrowly-defined economic domain. It relates to all of the other key
strategic priorities of our ANC-led alliance. The transformation of
health-care, for instance, requires (as the ANC is coming, in effect,
to increasingly recognize and affirm) precisely the enhancement of
socialisation in the sector (strengthening the public health sector;
rolling back the power of the pharmaceutical industry; the roll-out of
a national health insurance, etc.). The ANC and government might not
use the word "socialisation" (and that doesn't matter) - but this is
exactly the kind of converging appreciation for which we, as the SACP,
are struggling.
The same can be said for the turn-around in education - with the
important growing realisation that transformation (or in our
terminology "socialisation") of the sector doesn't just mean an
improving "state-controlled" sector (that's critical), but also, in
this case, the effective mobilisation of key social forces (teachers,
parents, learners, communities) around a unifying transformational
agenda.
Likewise, fighting corruption, another shared strategic priority,
critically relates to bringing the state and especially the SOEs under
a social/developmental mandate - as opposed to using them as sources
for primitive accumulation. The current crisis around governance,
golden hand-shakes, exorbitant tariffs, and failures to actually
effectively deliver in many SOEs provides us with an opportunity to
advance (not the cause of privatisation, as the DA will do) but rather
their effective and increasing socialisation - i.e. subordination to
the logic of meeting social needs not private profits.
As we have said in the recent past, the SACP welcomes the ANCYL's
attempt to raise questions around the transformation of the mining
sector, including possible nationalisation. We are the last ones to be
scandalised or disapproving of such a discussion. We are concerned,
however, that unless this important debate is raised in a constructive
way, and for principled reasons, it runs the risk of dividing the ANC
and our broader movement, and of discrediting the very real need for
major structural transformation in our society.
Asikhulume!!
--
Posted By DomzaNet to Communist University on 2/03/2010 09:03:00 PM
--
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] .
