Context
An interesting debate has arisen, triggered by comrade Jeremy Cronin's open letter to comrade Irvin Jim. Now this was a not an ordinary "open letter" because it was written by the First Deputy General Secretary of the SACP to the General Secretary of the second biggest affiliate of Cosatu, Numsa. As one could have imagined indeed comrade Jim responded in kind. A friend of mine once remarked that he always gets anxious when someone says "I need to talk to you".
He says the irony of it is that "they are already talking to you" but what they actually mean is that ‘they want to reprimand you on something". It's just like one beginning a sentence by saying "with due respect", then you must know there is something coming your way that is not "respectful". So the essence about "open letters" is that that their openness means that the recipients must often brace themselves for something unpalatable coming their way.
The whole "open letter" saga between the two prolific leaders of the working class movement was this time around given a little bit of drama and "spice" when Floyd Shivambu entered the fray. He penned an article in response to comrade Chronin's letter apparently with an intention to among others settle old personal and political scores with him. Well I am not taking away the fact that he advanced his own perspectives about nationalisation that by now we are accustomed to.
But his personal attack on Comrade Jeremy reminded me of events leading to the highly charged elective Conference of the ANC in 2007, when comrade Kgalema Motlanthe was asked by a journalist; "why Mbeki could not defend himself against accusations that he was dividing the party?" His response was that when you occupy a leadership position sometimes you don't have to wrestle with every member of the organisation because "some of them are a little bit stronger and they can break your leg".
Part of my take on this wide ranging debate that has comrade David Masondo as its latest entrant would be to deal with three dimensions in our struggle as follows:
1. Trade Unions and Capitalism
I move from the premise that trade unions are a product of capitalism. Workers mainly organise themselves into trade unions with a view of protecting their interests under a brutal and exploitative capitalist system. But the question is what kind of trade unions would be formed under capitalism, will they be reformist, revolutionary or reactionary. This is because workers are not always a progressive homogenous force as comrade Masondo would like us to believe. There is an organised proletariat mobilised under a revolutionary trade union such as NUM and there would be a reformist and reactionary union meant to safeguard interests of bosses such as Amcu, Solidarity Union and the list goes on.
That is why even in the apartheid era the government did not have much qualms about allowing trade union activity because they knew there would be several who are sympathetic to the regime and even defend its interests. The same notion exists even now where you find that Solidarity Union has clubbed with AfriForum to fight reforms at workplace such as Employment Equity, Affirmative Action and BEE which is part of their defence of white minority interests. But when a trade union adopts a revolutionary stance as most Cosatu unions have become then they could be regarded as schools of Marxism.
I want to impress upon comrade Masondo that capital does not sit and paint nails when the progressive trade union movement entrenches itself and becomes a factor in the struggle to overthrow capitalism. Part of the response of capital would be to plant seeds of divisions within the organised working class through establishing and sponsoring new unions that will organise and mobilise in a violent way and also capitalising on the weaknesses of established unions. It is against this backdrop that I reckon it is a bit reckless of Masondo to accuse Cronin of "pitting workers against each other".
Because the question could arise, which workers are being "pit against each other", progressive or reactionary? Indeed the state violence against workers anywhere should be condemned but this doesn't excuse or abolish the fact that Amcu is capital and management sponsored. Where else have you seen workers being compensated with bonuses in order to encourage them to end the strike?
2. Communists and the state
The South African Road to Socialism (SARS) correctly identifies the state as the terrain of the struggle. The state represents an embodiment of the highest concentration of power. Indeed as communists we regard the state as a contested terrain as Masondo correctly points out.
In dealing with the role of communists in and outside the state I would like emphasise what comrade Jim pointed out earlier. He correctly quotes from the Communist Manifesto which asserts that:
"The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. in the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole". The Communist Manifesto(1848),
The communist manifesto enjoins communists to always act in favour of the working class. In order to do this they must not subscribe to dogma. They must be capable of analysing the environment they are operating within and advance correct strategy and tactics. This leads me to the whole brouhaha about the National Development Plan, as if the plan itself is going to be a silver bullet to end the country's socio-economic woes.
The post 1994 state has come up with quite a number of prolific policies compared to those that remain in question or in doubt. What has been missing has been action to implement those dynamic policies. Take the Mining Charter for an example which was heralded upon its conception by all stakeholders that it will take transformation in the mining industry to a higher level, what happened to it? Why is the mining industry even regressing further now? Is it simply because mines are not nationalized?
The debate on how revolutionary or reactionary the NDP is will only be complete if it is coupled with a discussion on the "bureaucratic capacity of the Post 1994 democratic state to deliver on its mandate". If we take a leaf out of the Limpopo province where comrade Masondo serves as an MEC for Treasury, questions can be asked what has been the role of communists in fighting corruption that has been so endemic in the province to ensure that limited state resources are used to benefit the working class.
What has been the role of communists in ensuring that we have a functional health and educational systems that are an essential feature of a socialist state as we envisage it? What can we do within our realm as the leadership of the working class in government to begin laying the building blocks of socialism? What should be the revolutionary conduct and ethics of communists when we they are entrusted with positions of authority? So many questions!
3. Democracy and Socialism
The 1995 congress of the SACP held in "Shaft 17" had a dynamic theme entitled, "Advance Deepen and Defend the Democratic Breakthrough". This theme was point-on as it had the realisation that in 1994 we achieved a breakthrough that creates a democratic set up to advance the struggle for socialism. This was in line with what Joe Slovo wrote in 1988 about the dialectical link between the national and class struggles.
He famously asserted that there is no dichotomy between the struggle for democracy and socialism by illustrating the ‘national content of the class struggle and the class content of the national struggle". Socialism, to borrow from comrade Vavi's rhetoric is not going to "come with drum majorettes beating drums announcing it".
I contend that communists who occupy senior positions in government cannot be "fellow travellers" and abdicate their responsibilities to the capitalist nature of the state when they fail in their revolutionary responsibilities. The Communist Manifesto as cited earlier enjoins us to advance ‘the interest of the working class at any stage of the revolution" and I must add in all sites of the struggle including the state.
Peroration
A lot of these debates which are often characterised by "labelling and name calling" can be traced down to our failure to engage openly within the structures of the Alliance and the progressive democratic movement as a whole. This is coupled with our failure to operationalize a plethora of progressive policies that already exist in order to transform the state to live up to the revolutionary objectives of our movement.
Intellectual polemics are important in a struggle but in themselves will not assist us in denting the socio-economic conditions of the majority of the working class to the better. Indeed philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways the point though is to change!
Walter Mothapo is a member of the Provincial executive Committee of the SACP in the Limpopo province. These are his personal views.
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