4th and Final Instalment of 4 on the SACP's "Organisational Renewal" discussion document
'Towards an Organisational Review and Renewal Process': Commentary in number order: Clauses 21 to 35, of 35 D. Tweedie, 20 May 2015 21, 22. "One of the major opportunities to build an even more radical ANC is the current commitment by the ANC to a more radical second phase of our transition. This, coupled with the current crisis of capitalism and the related crisis of neo-Iiberalism, provides fertile ground for an even more left-oriented ANC." This is a pitiful, minor aim that undermines the revolutionary aim. It is disastrously wrong. The SACP is not an entryist organisation trying to steer the ANC gradually to the left. To waste time on such a small-minded preoccupation is to lose sight of the actual job, which is to render a class in itself into a class for itself, and to facilitate the revolutionising of the entire society through the creation of popular agency, via the creation of democracy. This is the National Democratic Revolution. It's slogan is "Power to the People." The NDR has nothing to do with surreptitiously "influencing" the ANC or any other mass organisation, to become more "radical", or more "left". 23. "However, there is the persistent threat of the growth of a parasitic and compradorial bourgeoisie with access to government and the danger of such capturing the ANC and government," et cetera. This expresses the fear that lies behind the desire for "control" and for "influence" (the latter being a weasel word that actually means "control"). It identifies the writer as one who is not able to understand that collective democratic agency must stand free, and that if it is controlled, then the process of making it free has been corrupted by the very Party that set out to render it as an agent in the first place. This is the meaning of the phrase "The ANC leads". It must lead, or it is not worth having. It cannot be a puppet, or a donkey to be ridden into Jerusalem by holier person. Its agency includes the agency of its component classes. Then, the working class must just win the battle of democracy. If it does, it does, if it doesn't, it doesn't. If we don't trust the working class to do this, then we might as well not be a communist party. 24. "Whatever scenario planning we do must be anchored on class analysis, rather than abstract speculation." Scenario planning is not class analysis. If you want scenario planning, it is because you want abstract speculation, and not class analysis. This is probably just confusion, but it looks like deception. It is the only place in this organisational renewal document where class analysis is mentioned. 25. "State power." Only bourgeois parties expect to have state power in a bourgeois state. 26, 27. "To remain relevant the SACP cannot afford to be a shadow of the ANC led liberation movement imposed by the current dispensation." This is the saddest statement in the whole organisational renewal document. Once again, it shows that the writers have forgotten that it is Power to the People that we are about, and that we as communists do not and must not compete with the people for power. The ANC leads, because if it did not lead, it would be useless. The whole point of the ANC is that it should lead. How can communists not know this? 28, 29. This clause is another reversion to the "new social forces" thinking of the Eurocommunists. It imagines class formation as if class was a problem for communists. Meanwhile the largest subjectively-self-conscious mass in the country - the women - are ignored by this document, although women remain unorganised, as women, in South Africa. 30. This is another pitiful statement of capitulation and lack of confidence: "we have a significant shortage of writers and theoreticians of the SACP; there is a paucity of Marxist-Leninist intellectuals in our universities and broader society. Instead the small grouping of Marxist academics has been captured by the ultra-left, Trotskyite traditions. Our publications are relatively stale with very few comrades that write. In broader media work we are very weak, and even unable to exploit the space of social media. A large part of our organizational renewal will have to focus on a concrete strategy on this front that will perhaps begin to yield some results in a decade or so, if we start addressing this in earnest from now." This proposes that in about ten years' time the SACP might have a few members who can write. In actual fact, the SACP has many members who can write, today, but it stops them from writing. The SACP is afraid to allow its members to write and publish what they write. This is the actual problem, and not any lack of comrades who can write. This whole "organisational renewal" document, and the especially the halting, furtive process of its publication, is evidence of the fear of the authors of the document, that comrades might get out of control and express themselves in public without prior approval. This is too often the mentality of the SACP. Because of this mentality, the SACP has been suppressing itself. Time passing will not solve this problem. 31. This clause is about the Communist University. The authors never consulted the Communist University before, during or after writing this clause or document. The SACP does not in fact support the Communist University in any practical way. The SACP national office continues to promise to put up the communist university stock of PDF material (courses), but up to this time it has not done so. The SACP has endorsed the Communist University before in words, including three years ago at Ongoye. But actually, the SACP as an organisation shows no sign of embracing study circles as a regular, "institutionalised" practice of the SACP. Instead, the preferred method of indoctrination, and the use of induction as rite of passage, or sacrament, continues to trump and to exclude the Communist University. Instead of a self-balancing, self-managing, communistic distributed network, the SACP hierarchy still wants to impose centralised direction of political education. Whereas political education cannot successfully be done in that centralised way, for the reasons so well explained by the late Paulo Freire, among others; and if it was possible, we would have already done it. 32, 33. After a little bit of a sermon, these clauses ask: What are the structural and institutional form and requirement of the Party organisation? This is an abdication from the existing constitution, without any examination of that constitution, or even a single allegation of any specific weakness in that constitution. This can only be because the existing constitution is extremely strong, and is for practical purposes, flawless. Why is there this proposal for the breaking of something that does not need to be fixed? 34, 35. More sermonising and preaching; more undermining of the existing constitution. It says that the one thing that must not be rewritten is the programme (MTV / SARS), which is in fact a dead letter and a symbol, rather than a programme. If this Organisational Renewal document is passed, the SACP constitution will be dismantled and replaced by a catechism, which will be intended to trump all study of the communist literature, while at the same time, the dead-letter programme will be retained. Branches will wither on the vine and the party will be constituted as a "brigade" without a structure. This document needs to be rejected in total. Instead of it, there needs to be a sincere "year of the branch", followed by another "year of the branch", and another, until we have enough branches. -- -- 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]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
