South Africa: SACP congress reaffirms support for ANC

BY DALE T. MCKINLEY




JOHANNESBURG — Not far from the predominately working-class Northwest
Province town of Rustenburg, where the South African Communist Party (SACP)
recently held its 11th congress on July 24-28, lies the garish ramparts
of South Africa’s own little Las Vegas — Sun City. It was within the confines
of this never-say-die outpost to capitalist hedonism that a little-noticed,
but seminally instructive, SACP event took place in the midst of all the
political noise emanating from the gathering just down the road.

No doubt in need of some extra-curricular activity after days of sombre
discussions about how best to make good on the congress slogan — “With
and For the Workers” — the SACP hierarchy trekked off to Sun City for a
fund-raising bash with the barons of South African capitalism.

Seated at tables (that came with price tags of up to R35,000 [US$3352])
alongside representatives of worker-friendly corporations like Anglo-American
and De Beers, the self-professed leaders of the “vanguard of the working
class” got down to real business.

With the anti-government songs of the rank-and-file congress delegates
a seemingly distant memory, the SACP leadership proceeded to show the capitalists
a thing or two about how to engage in double-talk and still make a quick
buck (close to R1 million according to one invited guest). All it took
was some praise singing for the African National Congress (ANC) government,
a signed, leather-bound copy of President Thabo Mbeki’s book and a few
Mbeki-signed caps thrown in for good measure.

Combined with all the political hoop-la and voluminous party documents
and speeches by various leaders before, and during, the congress, this
seemingly peripheral event spoke volumes of the message that the congress
sent to workers.

On the one hand, SACP deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin had set
a particular tone for Rustenburg with his pre-congress comments on the
authoritarian politics of certain elements within the ANC (read: Mbeki
and his acolytes) and the capitalist economic policies of the ANC government.

A public defence of Cronin by the SACP, Mbeki’s refusal to address
the congress and lots of “unofficial” talk about impending leadership changes
and organisational battles with the ANC further helped to fuel workers’
perceptions and expectations of a renewed radicalism and independence.

The implicit message was that the congress would set out a new political
and strategic direction, in which the SACP would finally stop playing organisational
cat and mouse with the ANC, adopt an ideologically clear leadership role
in ongoing working-class struggles against capitalism and, above all, begin
to practically fight for what it preaches.

On the other hand, once the congress proper got underway, it quickly
became clear that the SACP leadership possessed neither the intention nor
the will to make such a message real to workers. The comfort of old organisational
habits and the security of ongoing political posturing were simply too
great.

The best that could be mustered was a rhetorically radical defence of
the SACP. General secretary Blade Nzimande, without the slightest hint
of irony in his use of capitalist parlance, rounded off on those who might
dare to question the party’s socialist credentials by declaring that, “as
communists, let us be very clear: we are deployed, first and foremost,
to the anti-capitalist sector. We are deployed to the anti-private accumulation
struggle. That is our profession. The class struggle is our primary listing.
The workers and the poor are our core business.”

SACP leaders assiduously avoided dealing in the realm of reality and
thus with the most contentious political and organisational issues facing
the SACP. Nzimande, in referring to the SACP’s political relationship with
the ANC and associated neo-liberal policies of the ANC government, informed
delegates that, “we are pleased to report now that the series of bilaterals
(with the ANC) and alliance meetings, have taken us out of the dip, and
set us on a positive path of finding a common approach”.

Two days later, Mbeki was announcing, in reference to the ANC government’s
Thatcherite Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) policy strategy,
that, “there is no need for a change of policy” and that while a “Growth
Summit” would be held in 2003, the government would already have its economic
strategy in place by the end of the year.

Unfortunately, the truth was not in political fashion at the SACP congress.
The fact that the socio-economic situation of the working class in South
Africa has markedly deteriorated since the ANC-SACP alliance took political
power obviously made little difference to SACP leaders already convinced
about their specific brand of “communist” politics.

Instead of setting out exactly what the SACP would do in practice to
halt the continued privatisation of the public sector, Nzimande praised
government programs for the provision of basic services, telling delegates
that, “we have been able to use public ownership to direct resources to
those who most need them, against the grain of the capitalist market”.

Hardly a word, not to mention any concrete activity, was offered in
support of the ongoing struggles of poor communities, in both urban and
rural areas, against government-initiated water and electricity cut-offs
or housing evictions.

There was no acknowledgment that Mbeki’s arrogance and the government’s
consequent prevarications and inactivity have contributed directly to tens
of thousands of deaths from HIV-AIDs and thus no concrete political plan
to address a human horror in which workers are among the worst affected.
Tragically, delegates were told that the SACP’s role was the “mobilisation
of our people behind the implementation of a government strategy to fight
the HIV-AIDS pandemic”.

While there was a great deal of talk about socialism, and the adoption
of a political program replete with the usual litany of references to the
leading role of workers, etc., the bottom line is that the congress offered
nothing new for the South African working class.

The congress adopted the same rhetorically heavy “key strategic objective”
that has been the programmatic standard bearer of successive SACP congresses
over the last decade — “to build a mass-based momentum for socio-economic
transformation that overcomes poverty, deep-seated inequality and systemic
underdevelopment … (a transformation that) must be ANC-led, and working
class-driven”.

The fact that the ANC has continued to treat the working class with
arrogance and contempt, while playing the SACP for the left fool, was ignored
in classic SACP fashion, i.e., by repeating the same “line” again and again
and hoping that, somehow, people will actually believe it even if those
offering it don’t.

The congress could not even come up with a firm and binding decision
when it came to the seemingly never-ending debate about the political and
organisational role of SACP leaders outside the party. Rather, delegates
were left to ponder Nzimande’s eternal question: “What is the meaning of
SACP membership if, in some cases, it seemingly has no bearing whatsoever
on the conduct of Communists in other formations?”

It would have been a good question to ask while the SACP leadership
was cavorting with the capitalists at Sun City. But then again, there were
no workers present other than those serving the drinks and food, and they
obviously didn’t count. So much for the self-professed “vanguard” of the
working class serving the workers.

From Green Left Weekly, August 21, 2002.

Visit the Green Left Weekly
home page. 

From GLW issue 505