Intra-party democracy, consistent leadership: Combat factionalism, corporate capture and corruption
The recent developments in the broader movement have tempted this reflection, to add to the debate about intra- or inner-Party democracy and the abuses it does face.
What happened during the recent student mobilisation against fee increases by universities – fees are not increased by the government but by universities and colleges using their institutional autonomy – illustrates the point in terms of what became the isolation of, and personalised attacks against ANC national executive and working committees member who is SACP General Secretary, Comrade Blade Nzimande. This lowest level this stooped was when the ANC Youth League President called for a march to the house of Comrade Blade’s family. This indeed defines the new pettiness instead of being consistent.
We cannot close ranks and defend when reactionaries organise a march to the house of one leader, only to call for a march to the house of another leader who belongs to the same leadership collective and movement and thus not only negate the spirit of revolutionary solidarity but slide towards a dangerous phenomenon. As leaders we cannot fold our arms and be silent when such harmful tendencies are advocated in public. We must openly call order for all in our country and the world to know that we disapprove of the degeneration and are prepared to take action to nip it in the bud.
In addition, the student mobilisation also saw many other factionally co-ordinated activities to isolate Comrade Blade but the communists and the workers as a class. This included attempts at trying to solve the problem in a manner that marginalised and exposed him to more attacks and, ultimately, liquidation.
There can also be no doubt that the issue of the leadership of our movement in the context of the forthcoming ANC National Conference of 2017, linked with the 2019 general election and beyond, has factionally been brought to the fore. The old agenda to marginalise not only SACP leaders but the other organisational components of the working class within our alliance, along with the whole of the alliance itself, and this supported by abuse of internal democratic processes and state organs, including, the intelligence and security services to fight internal political battles as well as smear campaigns and vilification of certain leaders – seems to be bouncing back.
The evolution of a democratic discourse, under constitutional and democratic conditions in the movement is indeed a subject of continuous debate and should be kept as such.
Deepening relationship between the ANC and the SACP
The relationship between the ANC and the SACP is characterised by both the shared interests in the struggle for national liberation and the distinct historical missions as represented by the struggle for socialism and ultimately communism as championed by the SACP. Hence the Freedom Charter was adopted by the ANC as its revolutionary programme for national liberation and by the SACP for the same purpose but as its short-term programme to socialism.
Lenin argues same in that:
“Can a class – conscious worker forget the democratic struggle for the sake of the socialist struggle, or forget the latter for the sake of the former? No, a class conscious worker calls himself a social democrat (read communist) for the reason that he understands the relation between the two struggles. He knows that there is no other road to socialism save the road through democracy through political liberty. He therefore strives to achieve democracy completely and consistently in order to attain the ultimate goal – socialism”.
Lenin explains that the conditions for the democratic struggle are not the same because the workers will have different allies in each of these two struggles. This is important to observe in terms of our current situation and heightened anti-communism including from what our Part’s Secretary for International Affairs Comrade Chris Matlhako calls anti-communist “left”. In other words, in our revolution, at this conjecture:
- The democratic struggle is waged by the workers together with a section of the bourgeoisie, especially the petty bourgeoisie, particularly given that we have not even as yet build a black capitalist class in classical form, yet we have rich black people.
-The socialist struggle on the other hand is waged by the workers together with the rural proletariat and poor landless peasants against the whole of the bourgeoisie. Such a situation is currently debatable whether it properly exists or exist in parts, given the recent explosions of mass protests and the students’ struggles.
As one of the outstanding leaders of our struggle, Comrade Joe Slovo further argues in the South African Working Class and the NDR, 1988 that, “There is both distinction and a continuity between the national democratic and socialist revolution; they can neither be completely telescoped nor completely compartmentalised.”
In the same vein, as our Party veteran, Comrade George Mashamba always reminds us, the national struggle is also a class struggle. Depending on which class ultimately plays the leading role in the national struggle, the character, direction, content and outcome of the national struggle will differ.
The great O.R. Tambo, longest serving ANC President in the book OR Tambo Speaks, correctly states that “to struggle against imperialism and colonialism, against national oppression and exploitation, against apartheid and racism has both nationalist and socialist tendencies”.
What President Tambo observed was that in the alliance there will always be differences because the alliance is an inter-class alliance made up of different organisations with different class orientation. He warns that if there is haste in not handling the legitimate constant alliance contradictions properly we can reap one of the following outcomes:
- The defeat of the revolutionary democrats and the communists and entrenchment of bourgeois “democracy”; or
- The defeat of the petty bourgeois and other counter-revolutionary forces and the advance to socialism;
- The mutual weakening of the contesting parties leading to a debilitating statement and the emergence populist demagogues and tyrants
Intra-Party democracy
Progressive and revolutionary movements and organisations that are democratic first and foremost organise on the basis of the principle of internal party democracy, also known as intra- or inner-party democracy. Inner-party democracy gives effect to member participation, innovation and creativity in decision-making processes. In turn, it develops the capacity of members to participate in such processes meaningfully, and from an informed point of view.
In his Capital: A critique of Political Economy, particularly in the preface to the First German Edition of 1867, Karl Marx discusses writing the book in such a way that he presupposed, “of course, a reader who is willing to learn something new and therefore to think for himself (herself)”. In the same vein, inner-party democracy mandates members to learn all the time, think independently and express their views within relevant structures and processes without any fear or favour.
As a principle of party organisation and party life, intra-party democracy thus recognises that things are not always as they appear to be, and that in fact their very appearance needs to be understood in connection to its essence both in its historical context and the rest of the surrounding environment. Rather than simplistic, the problems that confront the masses of the people are the outcomes of complex processes and material forces – not any one individual for that matter. The development and application of science are, therefore, important to grasp the nature of the underlying causes and drivers of those problems and to develop both the way forward and clarity of tasks. Science is elaborated in its basic form as guided by its five pillars of observation, experimentation, measurement, quality and quantity.
It is therefore an inherent feature of internal party democracy to develop the capacity of members not only to exercise their freedom of discussion but to do so meaningfully in the broadest, enabling and freest internal party environment. As Marx has said, in all sciences every beginning is difficult, and sometimes not even clear.
In addition, and as we all know, there is no revolutionary science that is at the same time static. Revolutionary science is always in constant change. This is an indication of living contradictions within every phenomena in society, nature and thought, making contradictions a necessary element driving development. The issue is, however, particularly in social sphere, whether such contradictions are hostile and therefore detrimental to the cause being pursuit or harmonious and constructive towards the constructive development of what a movement pursues (as Mao Tse Tung would extol this theory of contradictions).
All revolutionary science is thus alive to, and therefore keeps pace with the changes that occur in the conditions from which it derives its existence. This places more emphasis on members to keep pace with the time, to keep learning and to maintain the course of thinking independently rather just become uncritical consumers of leadership rhetoric. Members must engage and interrogate constructively what the leadership puts forward and if need be even initiate debates.
In this context, clarity of thought, proper information and knowledge are central to inner-party democracy. In contrast, factional propaganda and the use of money to manipulate members and suppress independent thinking are the enemies of internal organisational democracy. These harmful things, which members and true leaders must condemn in theory and combat in practice do at times produce – but only factional and therefore momentary victories. What those harmful things and factional victories achieve, in the long run, is the destruction of the whole organisation such that even those factionalists will themselves eventually lose as everyone else.
Dialectics teach us that there is nothing permanent. As we all know, death is a process, not an event. But how long an organisation may travel to its grave once it has been captured by the process and is unable to withdraw from it no one can work out with accuracy by merely looking at it. It is worth observing, too, when an organisation is sliding in quality even though it may increase in quantity.
It is the duty of every member therefore to exert themselves against all forces of death – the factionalists. No inch to factionalists, no matter what position they occupy, no matter how good they may sound, such must be defeated.
Inner-party democracy is by the way not only concerned with freedom of discussion. At its highest level, it is about unity of action – this is referred to as centralism. Internal party democracy is therefore also about a proper articulation between freedom of discussion and unity of action. We cannot say one thing in in theory only to do something different in practice. Consistency is important. Just as all members must exercise their freedom of expression during decision-making processes, they all must unite behind action once decisions are made and during implementation. Factional tendencies, however, misconstrue this process of internal democracy – i.e. democratic centralism.
Such tendencies confuse the “centralism” in “democratic centralism” with the dictatorship of their factionalism. Wherever they rear their ugly heads, they impose their factional will upon members and thus corrode internal democracy. What they effectively do is the legitimation of factional capture – or if you like hijacking – of the constitutional form of the organisation and its abuse to serve their selfish interests.
It is in this context manipulations of membership systems, buying of delegates and their votes at conferences or congresses, corporate links and capture, as well as corruption, manipulation of meeting outcomes, have emerged as the serious threats facing the unity, cohesion and the life of our movement. The class basis of this process of destruction is the pursued of private accumulation of wealth. This is linked with ascendency to political positions and the state and the manipulation of its, i.e. public, resources. Which is why this entire phenomenon is inherently corrupt!
We must deal corruption a huge blow. It must be defeated at any cost if we are to preserve the inner-most values of our revolutionary struggle for complete national liberation, peoples’ power and socialism!
But, the class basis of this problem lies in the relationship between the state, on the one hand, and the production, procurement and delivery of public goods and services, on the other hand. As things stand, this relationship is based on private enterprise and competition between sections of business for tenders. The struggle against factionalism and corruption cannot bury its head in the sand and turn a blind eye on the important task of dealing with this as a problem on its own and not just the cause of other problems.
In a very real way, what appears on the surface in the form of factionalism is in its content competition for state tenders and opportunities, for which ascendancy to and influence on political office is taken as the first step. This misguided posture must be equally defeated.
We must always remember that “the life and development of society are determined, not by the wishes and ideas of outstanding individuals, but by material conditions, by changes in the mode of social production, and that the people are the real maker of their history although not under circumstances of their own choosing. As Marx teaches us, ideas become a material force only when they take hold of the minds of the masses. In other words, “the course of history is conditioned, not by the subjective desires of individuals, but by the objective laws of development of society”.
What are the immediate tasks to embark upon for the implementation of our programme? The first and perhaps the most important for the SACP structures and leaders is to occupy, as always, but intensify, the frontline trenches of existing revolutionary working class struggles and discharge our obligations to the working class. This includes connecting the socialist theory and practice with the working class movement. For instance,
- The student protests and the demands affecting workers against outsourcing and casualisation of labour.
- Cementing a deeper alliance between students and workers.
- Reclaim the townships and villages in concrete form around real programmes on the conditions facing the masses on the ground and build sustainable township and rural economies.
Orientate our ideological campus and fully grasp with clarity the current revolutionary and counter-revolutionary moments as well as the conjecture in our revolution and how to engage with it. We should be in a position to distinguish ourselves as a working class, Marxist-Leninist Party from the rest of the broader democratic movement that we are part of. But we must never seek make any theoretical concessions on ant matter of principle and adapt the revolutionary working class movement to the neoliberal capitalist interests.
What are the approximate reading of the concrete domestic balance of forces, between the democratic movement and revolutionary state intervention, on the one hand, and, on the other hand capital, the crisis-ridden and floundering neoliberal capitalist economic agenda guided less by the electoral mandate but the fear of ratings agencies and related new class alliances?
Equally, we need to analyse the relationship between the revolution and the explosion of mass struggles that need to be turned into a formidable addition to the fighting forces against the bourgeoisie appropriators. We should effectively use the current mass struggles to further strengthen our revolutionary forces particularly amongst the youth, students and the workers and build strong university and college based branches.
What has become clear, though, is that, whatever our posture, without entrenching the Party in mass struggles and building its leadership of mass power we are not going to succeed to defeat reactionary offensives both from within and without and attempts at corporate capturer as well as those who live on their spoils.
Let us combat factionalism, but in all its manifestations, and to the root! Let us assert intra-party democracy both as a principle and a primary right of members as equally asserted by the recent ANC NGC as correctly captured in the Presidential political report to that meeting! Let us deal a blow to factionalism and defend the dignity of the movement as a whole and advance towards socialism, the system to end capitalist exploitation of the working class and construct a new society based on the absolute will of the people!
This article by Solly Mapaila, SACP 2nd Deputy General Secretary, first appeared in Umsebenzi Online, the online journal of the SACP, 5 November 2015
