Bua Komanisi! Volume 9 Issue No. 3 June 2015

SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY

Consolidate our revolutionary advances,

Roll back neo-liberalism and its anti-majoritarian agenda

Towards SACP 3rd National Special Congress, 2015

Strengthen the vanguard character of the SACP

Chapter 1

Towards a review of Party Organisation

1. Introduction and Preamble

1.1. The first draft of this discussion document was unveiled at the Augmented Central Committee in 2014. It was then amended and circulated thereafter to Party structures for internal discussion. This in preparation for the 3rd Special National Congress (July 2015) and the 14th National Congress (July 2017) in terms of the resolutions of the 13th National Congress (July 2012). This document remains incomplete. It will be refined to become a Party Policy Paper following the 3rd Special National Congress, as stated below.

1.2. Marxism-Leninism teaches us three fundamental aspects of its spheres in nature, society and thought, and that these are always in a continuous process of change. The organisational review process recognises this reality. It accepts change as constant, therefore as continuous and inevitable. The posterity of the SACP is assured with this kind of exercises which should be revisited frequently.

1.3. Political decay and ideological decadence necessitates radical changes in the way we approach social, economic and political matters as well as organisational life. While this holds true in general, what has necessitated this process in particular is succinctly captured above. There is a number of changes which have occurred not only in our broad National Liberation Movement but, in particular, the Liberation Alliance and the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), as well as in our society in general. Changes have an impact on the way we are organised and do things. Some of the changes that have occurred, however, were correctly campaigned for by our Party.

1.4. This process of organisational review and reorganisation is therefore aimed at repositioning the Party to keep pace with the times and be responsive as effectively as possible to continuously changing conditions, both positive and negative. However, this process is, simultaneously, an opportunity to renew and wage a relentless struggle against our own weaknesses. Among others, through the review of Party organisation and the conduct of Party members at all levels including leadership levels. This includes mining the ground in our broad movement to respond to any political decay and ideological decadence. Therefore, this discussion is not just about the Party alone but our movement as a whole and society at large.

1.5. We are embarking on this far reaching programme in the context of the Centenary of the Great October Socialist Revolution (2017) and the Centenary of the SACP (2021). This review process should both celebrate these important milestones in the revolutionary working class struggles for socialism and the ultimate goal of communism and reposition the Party organisationally for the advance to socialism. In the ultimate analysis, we must be seen to be strengthening preparations and the struggle for deepening the NDR towards its logical conclusion, that of, our next democratic breakthrough, laying the indispensable basis for our transition to socialism!

2. The organisational context of the review

2.1. Towards its 13th Congress the Party engaged in a series of debates. Through the Central Committee we processed discussion documents to prepare and develop the Party programme, the South African Road to Socialism (SARS).

2.2. Amongst the hotly debated issues were constitutional amendments which invariably began to reposition the Party, relevant to the new obtaining conditions of a Communist Party serving in governance – that is, in alliance with a progressive and militant trade union movement and a multi-class movement in, and leading, the government in a predominantly capitalist society. This further prompted the need to probe and discuss the relationship between the working class and state power, contributing to the well- known state power debate within the Party.

2.3. At the core of these debates were how to relate to both the state and state power in dealing with what is arguably one of the most intricate and complex revolutionary processes. The 12th Party Congress (2007) had resolved this matter by re- affirming that the state under capitalist production relations is contested. The Party, therefore, agreed to actively participate in the democratic state institutions and processes to contest all its trajectories in favour of the working class, and not leave this key site of power uncontested to bourgeois dominance. This was guided by the Medium Term Vision (MTV) of the Party following its 1st Special National Congress (2005).

2.4. In its assessment of the first decade of our transition to democracy, the Party concluded that the bourgeois had benefitted the most in economic terms. This despite the many major social advances and the rights that the overwhelming majority of the working class had achieved for the first time. In its collective wisdom, the Party arrived at the MTV, which declared that, if things are to change, going forward there must be no single centre of power in our society which must be allowed to exercise that power without the presence, input, influence and the impact of the working class. Characterising its leadership, the Party summed up its task in tilting the balance in favour of the working class, as that of building working class power and hegemony in all key sites of struggle and power: the overriding goal of this review process.

2.5. In order to carry out this task, the Party decided that its leaders must be released to serve in government based on continuous assessment and the need to strike a balance between all other key sites of in Party work, namely the state itself, the community, the economy, the workplace, the ideological terrain, the international terrain and the environment. The Party further agreed to create mechanisms for both their deployment and accountability, starting first with the establishment of the Deployment and Accountability Commission of the Central Committee. The functioning, workings and effectiveness of the Commission and lower levels Deployment and Accountability Committees need to be improved. As part of the organisational review process the Party must develop guidelines in this regard.

2.6. The 13th Party Congress took the work step further. Through SARS it re-organised Party Organisation by: endorsing Voting District-based branches; expanding the Secretariat at the National and Provincial levels requiring one member of the Secretariat to be full-time; flexibly enlarging the size of District Executive Committees; recognising the coordinating functions of Sub-Districts; paying special attention to Party building, adding it as a full chapter in the Party programme; and providing for initiatives to strengthen the Head Quarters and the entire Party Organisation. This re-affirmation of Party building as a critical political task was very important and sought to bridge the gap of a mistaken separation between organisational development and political programme.

2.7. However, the process was not concluded, at least to the satisfaction of the 13th Party Congress. Therefore the 13th Party Congress mandated the Central Committee to complete this task and report to the 14th Party Congress. Accordingly, one of the critical discussion documents of our 14th Party Congress will be on Party Organisational Review and Reorganisation. In this context, the 3rd Special National Congress is called upon to consider this present document and enrich it for that purpose, including, through resolutions both for immediate implementation and, equally important, resolutions for further consideration and ratification by the 14th Party National Congress. The 14th Party Congress must finalise the work and complete this cycle of the process.

2.8. The entire Party organisation is therefore required to continue the discussion on Party Organisational Review and Reorganisation beyond the 3rd Special National Congress taking into account its outcomes. This work must take place and be strengthened at the branch, district and provincial levels. It must continue to involve complementarity between bottom-up and top- down co-ordination and discussion as led by the 13th Congress Central Committee.

2.9. This discussion document will be revised accordingly. The final Policy Position Paper, including where necessary constitutional amendments, must and will be finalised and adopted by the Central Committee for consideration by the 14th National Congress ahead of time. This in terms of the relevant provisions of the Party constitution.

3. The broader political context of the review

3.1. The imperialist offensive against its hegemony has heightened internationally. This offensive has become more aggressive here at home as elsewhere with overt and covert attacks directed at our National Liberation Movement, Alliance and its independent formations the SACP, ANC and COSATU, as well as associated autonomous structures. In particular, the SACP, the struggle for scientific socialism and communism, have been the most severely attacked, as the first target against the rest of our movement.

3.2. The rest of our movement and various sectors of its organisation are facing serious challenges. The leading organisational component of the movement, the ANC, as well as the Party, are affected in various ways either directly or indirectly if not both. The trade union, students, youth, women and civic organisations are facing serious internal problems of organisation, unity and cohesion. They have, in general, been weakened and are struggling to regain their footing. The causes of these problems include internally original dynamics and related contestations. But these not in isolation from the broader economic situation facing our country.

3.3. In particular, a significant part of the material basis of the problem lies in the economy, which is characterised by high levels of inequality, unemployment and poverty, but in which leadership positions in politics, proximity to the state and its links with business, including tenders, and politics-business and business connections, are seen as vehicles of upward mobility out of the bottom rungs of inequality, unemployment and poverty.

3.4. In the process, corruption has found its way and contaminates the DNA of many organisations, not least in our movement but as well as outside it. The impact of external forces in perpetuating the problems, manipulating the situation, exploiting it and deepening divisions for their own profit must not be neglected, undermined and underestimated.

3.5. To this end there have been visible class reconfigurations associated with a degeneration in the character of liberation forces mainly driven by, as stated, economic and social changes.

3.6. It is absolutely critical, therefore, that the process of Party Organisational Review and Reorganisation is not seen to be in isolation from the overall struggle to contest the direction of our society and its reorganisation as a result of capitalist accumulation, restructuring and deepening attempts at corporate capture of our state. In particular, the state-class relations must not be left out of sight. The deepening attempts at corporate capture of the state and indeed even many organisations reflect an agenda, which in part is already entrenched and therefore accommodated in the tenderisation of the state, to embed the state even further in the capitalist class.

3.7. Post-1994, we also increasingly have a new- post liberation struggle generation. The statistical finding that unemployment mostly affects the youth means that this generation has a significant unemployment rate. In addition, it needs proper education, including political education and ideological training. Both energised and distressed, if not attended to this generation could become vulnerable to negative mobilisations and driven astray.

3.8. All of these necessitate adaptation and therefore changes to meet the demands of the continuously changing situation. This discussion document may not sufficiently address our response to all these issues. It is critical therefore that our unfolding discussion fill the gap by the time of our

3.9. One overriding objective must also be considered. This Party Organisational Review and Reorganisation takes place in the context where our Liberation Alliance converges on the need to pursue the second, more radical phase of our transition. What type of the SACP and Alliance, as well as, therefore, the ANC and COSATU does the pursuit of the second, more radical phase of our transition require? This question must be answered sufficiently through this process of Party Organisational Review and Reorganisation.

4. Fundamental guiding pillars of the Party Organisational Review and Reorganisation process

4.2. Noting the inherent risk with any review process, the SACP organisational review process should be guided politically and ideologically and conform to basic Party principles and policies amongst which few are outlined below:

4.2.1. Commitment to the political programme of the Party and its strategic perspectives to deepen, defend and take responsibility for the NDR and build socialism in the context of our affirmation of Marxist-Leninist principles and guidelines.

4.2.2. Unflinching commitment to our Revolutionary Alliance and its programme, the NDR, as a strategic posture and programme to drive, deepen, consolidate and advance the transformation of our society ultimately leading to the indispensable basis for ending all forms of exploitation.

4.2.3. Re-affirmation of the Party principles, to mention just a few:

a) Accountability of members and Party control;

b) Democratic Centralism;

c) Collective Leadership;

d) Discipline and Self-Discipline;

e) Loyalty to the Party and the people’s revolutionary cause.

Chapter 2

Towards a Framework: Party Building in a Continuously Changing Environment

1. Take a long range view, strengthen the Party, elevate the centrality of its constitution

1.1. The process of organisational review, and the necessity to strengthen the SACP as a vanguard Party for socialism, cannot be divorced from the tasks that the SACP has set for itself in our own Political Programme, SARS.

1.2. Party Organisational Review and Reorganisation must also be based on a thorough analysis of the challenges facing our revolution, and the specific role of the SACP, now and in the coming period.

1.3. Guided by our own programme, building the organisational capacity of the SACP must also not be narrowly seen in terms only of the SACP organisational structures, but also the role of the SACP in building the capacity of the working class in general thus expressing our vanguard role properly.

1.4. The capacity of the democratic developmental state we seek to build, capable of driving the goals of the NDR, a direct route to socialism, must, similarly, not be seen in isolation.

1.5. It is also important that the SACP in this process takes a long range view of the challenges ahead, at least in the next 20 years, and adopt clearly defined targets and milestones in the struggle to build a socialist South Africa. For instance what would constitute either strict targets or irreversibles in the context of the NDR and related societal mobilisation and how best to lock these targets or milestones towards their achievement?

1.6. We need to build the Party in a much popular and simple way. This will make it attractive to the workers, the youth, women and sectors of our society that are not easily attracted to the Party programmes, let along to understand it.

1.7. The first task in Party building is political, with clearly articulated principles, policies and general guidelines as the basis to unite our Party, cohere members and enhance its unity of purpose. The ideological training of members is the prerequisite of the political strength of the organisation and a critical requirement to fulfil this task.

1.8. To develop and train members correctly, we need to elevate the value of the Party constitution. The constitution itself must espouse the prime values of the Party, its ideology, succinctly, and be the central point of orientation of Party members. It must not be seen mainly and even only by some as a mechanical operational framework document. Neither must it be seen as a document simply used to resolve disputes. The Party constitution must be more of a political and ideological document which guides members and the entire Party organisation. It must outline the expectations of Party from its members and outline their expected conduct as well.

1.9. The second primary task is adherence to implement the principle of Democratic Centralism as a pillar of Party building, unity and cohesion. We should therefore work to improve organisational systems and policies guiding Party operations and clarifying the process of accountability and control of members and leaders. Democratic Centralism should be utilised to deepen intra- Party democracy, coordination and guide Party members on the implementation of our programme.

1.10. To do this we consider consolidating some work already done on Party building in terms of new methods of work and summaries to simplify the tasks and set parameters as we make organisational work exciting. The intention is that over time members can fully comprehend the basic tasks, pillars and the historic mission of the Party.

2. The main pillars of Party building

2.1. Follow the correct practice of Democratic Centralism, summarised below under ‘The Four Subordinates of Party Building’, under the following pillars.

a. Develop the working class ideology of Party members.

b. Unity of purpose and collective leadership.

c. Organisational discipline, individual discipline and self-discipline.

d. Constructive criticism and self-criticism as a critical method of constant improvement.

e. Follow the Party principles, uphold revolutionary morality and conduct.

3. The Four Critical Subordinates of Party Building:

3.1. In carrying out the task of building the organisation and the deepening Democratic Centralism. There are at least four clear guidelines in this regard.

a. The individual subordinates to the collective, and the collective respects the individual;

b. The minority subordinates to the majority, and the majority respects the minority; factionalism is prohibited.

c. The lower level structures subordinate to the higher level structures and leading organs, and the higher levels structures and leading organs listens to and respects the lower levels;

d. The Central Committee subordinates to the Congress and the entire organisation subordinates to the constitution.

3.2. If properly grasped by, these basic teachings will help, members to understand how the organisation functions, enhance discipline and consolidate unity and cohesion.

4. Party Building Tasks by grass roots organs

4.1. To selflessly serve the community as the first task and priority, every Party member and particularly leader must have the inherent duty to build a constituency for the Party and its interventions in residential areas and relevant sectors where they are based in terms of other social activities. This must be considered as one of the principles in our fundamental criteria on what it means to be a communist and on performance assessment for members and leaders.

4.2. Recruitment and training of new members: a minimum of two years is necessary to train a comrade to meet acceptable requirements to service other members and serve the people at large in terms of Party principles. Presently the Party constitution states that a person applying for membership will be an interim member for one year, while, among others receiving the necessary training. This requires the implementation of the Party programme on the institutionalisation of Political Education, which in turn requires institutional capacity building. The Chinese recruit and prepare a member for two years before deployment to any Party structure. Special care is also given to the training of the Young Communists League members with more practical deployment in various tasks of Party work.

4.3. Communication of Party decisions: this should not be a by the way issue. It is a fundamental requirement of Party building and is addressed in a separate internal Party document.

4.4. How to resource the Party: This is a critical area of work and needs urgent attention if we are serious about Party building. What are the appropriate legitimate forms of raising funds to meet the daily tasks of Party building, campaigns, programs and operations?

4.5. Expand the various fronts of Party building and ensure on accountability.

5. Advance good activism: the Three Signs of a Good Party Activist

5.1. In our communities we need to identify what are the major challenges confronting the people and define the subsequent Party tasks to rally them around and mobilise interventions. In this respect, each branch and Party unit at various levels should identify their immediate tasks and confront them.

5.2. The following Three Signs of a Good Party Activist are essential in this process, all Party members must be oriented and must orientate themselves accordingly:

5.2.1. Visit the people in their homes through proper arrangements to talk to them and share ideas. Invite them to collective or community mass meetings to share in solutions of their common problems. Do not impose your views!

5.2.2. Be informed and inform the people about our revolution and its work, successes and challenges. Essentially account to the people truthfully – NO SPIN. So arm yourself with correct information and be truthful.

5.2.3. Be with the masses and rooted in your community by serving them, take up community issues and engage relevant authorities and work with them for solutions. If there are intransigent authorities, lead the people against that intransigence. In order to earn leadership from the people Party cadres must adhere to:

6. The Tenets of Party life

6.1. Live modestly and honestly – live a simple life.

6.2. Be a good example, as stated in terms of the good servant of the people, of solidarity, humility, empathy, etc.

6.3. Always be part of the community’s search for solutions and its solutions. Be there for the people, not absent!

6.4. All of these must be steeled in the historical mission of the Party which is to fight and defeat the capitalist system and end all forms of exploitation and replace it by building a socialist transitional society towards communism.

7. No woman no revolution

7.1. Women are already themselves been mobilised and have for decades of our struggle been in all trenches. There is a need, however, for this role to be supported and given space to prosper. The Party and its cadres must lead by example in deepening this mobilisation. The Party must also ensure that in its leadership ranks the minimum requirements prescribed in its constitution to achieve redress in terms of gender parity do not become maximums, and therefore stagnant. We must organically move beyond those minimums and not simply adhere to them for compliance purposes.

7.2. All of the Party cadres, both men and women, need to be equally sharpened in terms of political education and ideological training. However, in recognition of the patriarchal history, nature and character of our society and the negative impact on women, who have been placed in the receiving end of many social problems, the Party must strengthen its focus on women and women leadership in political education and ideological training. This itself as part of our affirmative strategy to achieve redress. This approach must apply in our attitude to the development of societal leadership.

7.3. All of the above must be complimented by increasing focus on women organisation and buttressed by intensified Party mobilisation against patriarchal and unequal power relations between men and women.

7.4. In the context of its work on the youth, the Party must particularly increase its focus on young women, who, also need to be self-sufficient, and who need to swell the ranks of our revolution for their own emancipation.

8. Develop mechanism and set basic standards and requirements for Party building.

8.1. What standards these should be and what should be the requirement of membership to the Party? Should this change? Below we try to summarise some ideas around setting basic standards for membership:

1.1.1. Service to society as a prerequisite. This implies changing the way we recruit and admit new members into the Party by setting

a new admission criteria, including service to the people, in particular, the workers and the poor. What must the criteria encompass?

1.1.2. Service to the Party and its members as a contribution towards party building. Members will be required to fulfil a number of free or voluntary hours to the Party at various levels as determined by the relevant Party organ under guidelines set by the Central Committee.

1.1.3. Tasking of all Party members by the relevant executive structures: the style of work of members who interface with the Party only at meetings must be abolished. All members must find a mechanism to contribute to Party life beyond participation in meetings. They should be tasked by the corresponding leadership to embark on Party work in their communities and/or in the sectors where they are based in terms of their respective social activities.

1.1.4. The Party and various levels of Party organisation should study the local conditions, internalise and deepen the capacity for constant assessment of the realities facing communities. The Central Committee may develop such a broader framework to be adapted to the local conditions.

1.1.5. We need to establish a fully-fledged Commission for Discipline and Revolutionary Morality in order to monitor, assess and enforce ideological, political, organisational and communist discipline within the ranks of the Party and society at large.

1. Raising the bar of service to the people:

1.1. All members should be raising the bar on service with regard, but not limited, to the following categories:

a. Raising the bar of community service, service to members and the liberation forces.

b. Raising the bar of leadership requirements for the party and the community.

c. Raising the bar of example in the community and other spheres of social activity.

d. Raising the bar of discipline, self-discipline, revolutionary morality and communist conduct.

e. Raise the bar of the ideological requirements of Party membership and improve self- cultivation of members. This is a task of all cadres and structures alike.

2. A good servant of the people: requirements and values

2.1. To fulfil this task of serving the people Party members must wholeheartedly give themselves to serving the working class. They must do so with, amongst others, the following distinguishable values:

a. Solidarity

b. Humility

c. Empathy

d. Dedication and

e. Selflessness

2.2. The articulation of these values is the most important one we need to deal with. The danger we have is the closeness of the livelihoods of many comrades and members of society to state jobs. We need to deal with that, set parameters and develop a code of conduct for Party leaders and members serving or working in the public service but as well as push for the development of our productive capacity – this perspective is elaborated in Going to the Root – our discussion document on the second, more radical phase of the NDR, its context, content and our strategic tasks. The risks of reliance of public service jobs and opportunities have deepened for our revolution in the context where the basic structure of our economy was not transformed and crisis levels of inequality, unemployment and poverty persisted.

2.3. We need to create a way by which we can defeat the ‘traders’ of influence and the influence that they have in determining the state of the movement through factionalisation in order to sustain lifestyles and guarantee job placements, contracts (i.e. mainly tenders) and other benefits. Ours is not the DA-type attack on the deployment of cadres.

2.4. We fully support cadre deployment and yet we need to address its unintended consequences that are damaging to the movement. In particular, to emphasise the point, we need transparent processes, procedures and institutional structures within our movement functioning under the highest executive authority on the selection, preparation, selection, deployment, accountability and control of cadres as well as a comprehensive code of conduct for them. In brief, we must assert the collective nature and character of these functions.

2.5. Deployment of any member must not depend on any one person in any component and at any layer of, who then dispenses patronage and factionalises our state of, organisation. Particularly at sub-national levels this has proven to be one of the serious problems we must deal with. We must deal with patronage and factionalism and confront these in the same way as we must ruthlessly deal with corruption without fear or favour.

2.6. At local government level, the involvement of communities in selecting leaders must be deepened under proper leadership. In general, the work of all public officials and representatives must be open to public scrutiny and assessment. Mechanisms to give effect to this organisationally and protect the process of manipulation are required in a long run so that reliance is not placed on established public institutions only.

2.7. The need to assert the new standard of revolutionary morality with a much deeper content, for instance, the values of serving the people: we must combat transactional relationship with the people that does things because the person is paid for the job and often that person does not see the essential content of the work as serving the people. Communist cadres need to lead in the example of service to the people.

3. The three Firsts of Party Membership

3.1. The following, referred to as ‘The Three Firsts of Party Membership’ must constitute the first three and standing tasks of all Party members, new and old:

a. Serve the People First.

b. Serve the Revolution First.

c. Serve the Party First.

4. Task of newly recruited members

4.1. We need to revisit the question of interim members and their role in Party life during the interim period (already the issue of probation has been touched herein). Many branches have just recruited members without taking them through induction programme and systematic political education and ideological training.

4.2. New members should be encouraged and assisted to read and learn more about the Party, the Alliance and its formations and about Marxism-Leninism as the base of their communist activity. The Party must constantly run political schools at all levels without exception. We must be a learning Party, and a teaching Party, a Party of action, all in all, a Party of theory and practice.

4.3. We have not done well to integrate new members into our methods of work. Most just follow the flowing waters. We need to insist on community tasking as an integral component of the new membership requirement and improve the work of integrating new members to Party building tasks. Political education and ideological training remain essential in this respect.

4.4. We should further explore and relook at the appropriate form of training for new members and the content of teaching and learning to be covered, whilst not taking away community tasking as an important introduction to Party work. Interim members should be deployed to basic Party tasks under the supervision of a full member and the relevant executive organs as a way of introduction to Party life and activities.

4.5. There is an issue that relates to the politicisation of the members of the Party. It might be simpler to measure certain things. For instance what does it mean to be a member of the Party besides memorising this or that Communist literature or attending a meeting or action programme? The assessment tool that must be developed should take into account this aspect. But at the core of this process is the development of the quality of a cadre required by the Communist Party.

4.6. In addition, we need to meticulously enforce constitutional requirements of probation for eligibility and election in the leading organs of the Party at all levels as well as public representatives. We must combat the juniorisation of the leadership ranks of the Party.

Juniorisation of the leadership ranks of the Party, often against its constitutional prescripts, is a recipe for patronage, factionalism and the collapse of quality and therefore the cause of degeneration in the leadership of the Party. The leading organs of the Party must be a vanguard in themselves and compose of the most enlightened of Party cadres who must be steeled in its history, Marxism-Leninism.

5. The SACP and, the youth and the Young Communist League

5.1. As the ANC Kabwe Conference held in 1985 observed:

“The young and rising generation constitutes a representative of the future in the broadest sense; the future of any society depends on the practical and spiritual moulding of the youth. Classes and strata act not only for their own good but also for the good of their rising generation. The youth grows and is moulded within a specific social environment – be it in the comfort and sleek surroundings of the capitalist home, school and boardrooms, the squalid conditions of the working class ghetto, the backward and wretched environment of the rural poor, or the confines of a petty-bourgeois upbringing.

The stage of youth is one of assimilating knowledge of all kinds. Avidly searching for a rational understanding of the surrounding world, the youth therefore displays curiosity, rebelliousness, impassioned and uncontrolled enthusiasms; it quickly forms judgements as it abandons others. Such a stage is crucial in the moulding of stable social being; thus all classes and strata wage relentless battles for the hearts and minds of the youth.

The youth is as enthusiastic in its search for knowledge as it is militant in the fight for the realisation of the ideals it holds dear. Having evolved an understanding of the ‘right and the wrong’, it displays great zeal and verve in fighting for what it conceives as just. Within the different class formations it acts as a powerful driving force, a dynamo of the class, national and international battles. It is to be found in the front trenches of practical and theoretical struggles displaying both initiative and self-sacrifice.

Due to their inexperience and illusions bred of their psychological make-up, young people can be easily swayed into positions that are counter to their interests. Thus a young worker could seek false comfort by abstaining from class battles or even by joining the exploiter’s state machinery. Not seldom, young people are enticed en masse to adopt social and cultural value systems alien to their interests.”

5.2. The enormity of dealing with these challenges cannot be left to the youth movement alone – including the YCL. As Kabwe further asserted:

“All societies in general, and classes in particular, pay special attention to the youth. For any people or class to shirk this responsibility is to do great harm to itself. This applies particularly to peoples struggling to break the shackles of oppression and exploitation. No revolution can be victorious without the effective education, organisation and mobilisation of the youth into political action. It is none other than the youth (especially the working youth) who form the core of the ‘political’ and ‘military’ armies of the revolution. Their youthful energy enables them to perform great feats in the theatre of battle; their vigour enables them to be the most active transmitters of ideas and skills; their zeal spreads into their surroundings like wild- fire.

The youth acts as such not as a separate contingent vis-à-vis the motive force of the revolution, but as an integral part thereof. The struggles of the youth would not count for much if they were not linked to those of the working people. At the same time, the youth lends the revolutionary struggles this youthful vigour only if and when it enjoys the guidance and experienced tutelage of the older generation. This calls for a wise approach in dealing with the youth; a balanced and timeous combination of severity and patience, seriousness and good humour.”

5.3. The SACP has to develop measures to give effect to its tasks on the youth as succinctly summarised above. In particular, the Party must empower its structures to handle matters affecting the youth. We shall return to this. First we deal with relationship between the SACP and the YCL, a perennial issue that has for some time now required our attention.

5.4. In its message of support to the 13th Party National Congress, the YCL, represented by its National Secretary, had the following to say:

“We are the YCLSA of the SACP. We are formed as a result of the constitution of the SACP. The dynamism of the relationship between the SACP and the YCL, its dialectic, constitutional, political and programmatic nature is what has made the YCL what it is, and similarly had an impact on the current and future nature of the SACP.

If we are not close to the leadership and structures of the SACP, who should we be close to? …We have a platform to engage with our leadership. In fact, the average age of the membership of the SACP is youth. We will never define ourselves outside of the SACP because we are the SACP and its future. If we oppose the SACP in order to prove our autonomy, which we have as an integral part of the SACP, we will end up veering towards the oppositionists just because people claim that we are not independent.

Comrade General Secretary, young people in the YCL understands that we will do what Lenin instructed us to do. Learn! Learn and Learn! We do not suffer from a political and ideological learning deficiency to the extent that to prove that we have learnt, therefore reduce our role being to fight with the SACP in front of a conflict hungry media.

We understand that that this factory called the YCL, this university of beautiful young reds, this training ground for a future and socialist South Africa, just like all factories it will have its own factory faults, just like all universities it will have its own drop-outs, but we do our best at all times to produce the best proof cadres to take the baton from this leadership collective into the future.

Many young people are gradually finding hope in both the SACP and YCL`s slogans of “Socialism is the future: Build it Now” and “Socialism in our Lifetime”. As more and more young people find themselves locked in a future without jobs, education, quality public healthcare; they realise that the nightmare of capitalism has to be brought to an end and that the future of socialism is inevitable.”

This summarises the correct perspective on this organic relationship espousing the YCLSA as an integral organ and part of the SACP. This perspective must be strengthened and build into an unbreakable pillar of guidance for all YCL members in their relation with their Party as is with the Party members who should not even see the YCL at a distance but as part of their whole.

5.5. The above eloquently captures the strategic objectives that the Party’s organisational review process has to strengthen with regards to the relationship between the SACP and the YCL. The following observations and complementary tasks need to be undertaken as equally important.

5.6. There are YCL members who just participate in the activities of the YCL and not those of the Party. Whilst some belong to SACP branches and are active members there is no systemic link of Party and YCL activities. We need to consider this matter and actually elaborate what should be considered distinct Party tasks and functions to be undertaken by all YCL members beyond the general membership of, and the constitutional link with the Party. This notwithstanding, the following pledge is proposed for all YCL members.

5.7. The youth pledge to:

a. Serve the youth and the interests of young people;

b. Serve the working class;

c. Learn and work;

d. Honour and respect fellow human beings;

e. Sacrifice for the betterment of society.

5.8. Empower Party structures to deal with youth matters

5.8.1. Therefore corresponding Party structures should give due regard to service the YCLSA at corresponding levels starting with attending and addressing political meetings of the YCLSA, share recent decisions of the Party structures, etc., thus providing general political and ideological guidance. This should happen constantly and not by chance, and should be seen in the context of intra-Party service.

5.8.2. In recognition of the fact that our population is:

a. significantly made up of youth;

b. many challenges facing our society are likely to be most felt among young people mostly from the working class background;

c. it will be a strategic error to leave the Progressive Youth Movement including the YCL alone in relation to tackling those challenges, these would require the entire movement.

5.8.3. The Party Programme states that the SACP itself must empower its own structures to deal with youth matters. This further considering that the overwhelming majority of the Party’s membership is young.

5.8.4. In its reflection on the YCL, the Party Programme states that the organisation and communist education of all sections of the youth must be strengthened:

“…with particular attention being paid to young workers, students, professionals, and marginalised and unemployed youth. One of the biggest challenges facing our country is to address the needs of the youth, and one of the best ways to do this is to challenge the influence of capitalist ideology, tenderpreneurship, drugs and alcohol abuse amongst the youth.”

5.8.5. The Partyprogrammelocatesthisinthecontext where ideological work among the youth to take active participation in the Progressive Youth Movement, the NDR and the struggle for socialism must itself be strengthened, and where the YCL serves as the preparatory school for the Party. In this regard the Party has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that its preparatory school functions effectively and achieves the impact that it re-established it for – the organisational review process must therefore streamline this principle in the definition of the relationship between the Party and the YCL.

5.8.6. The Party needs to continue to strengthen the political and organisational relationship with the YCL. Every branch of the SACP should lead the process of forming a YCL branch where none exists, working together with the respective higher leading organs of the YCL. Where there is a YCL branch and no SACP branch exists, the YCL should, as one of its first tasks, and working together with the respective higher leading organs of the Party, similarly lead the process of launching an SACP Branch and immediately accept its political guidance.

6. The SACP Organisational Review and the Alliance

6.1. Whilst the SACP is an independent political party, it, at the same time, is part of the Alliance with the ANC and COSATU. However the condition for engaging in strategic and tactical alliances is, first and foremost, a strong, independent SACP that is rooted within the working class and serves as the vanguard for socialism. This means that while strategic and/or tactical alliances are necessary in different phases of the struggle, the point of departure must always be to build the SACP as a strong, independent vanguard Party for socialism and the working class. This attribute is fundamental for the Party if it were to achieve its programme of building working class hegemony and power and providing communist leadership in all key sites of struggle and power, including, alliance itself.

6.2. In this respect part of our own organisational review must also reflect on our Alliance, the challenges facing each of its components and the whole Alliance collectively. The period lying ahead will require more, rather than less, of our Alliance, in particular, but there will necessarily arise moments for some form of other alliance engagements in order to deepen the NDR and intensify the struggle for socialism.

6.3. The SACP must, in any case, as we have done with most of our campaigns, seek to forge relations with a wide range of social forces to advance particular goals during different phases of our revolution. Perhaps one of the weaknesses of many communist parties in the 20th century, especially those that were in power after the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917, was their inability to form genuine and organic alliances with a wider range of progressive social forces in their societies.

6.4. The 13th Party Congress also spoke about the necessity to build the independent organisational presence and influence of the SACP in all the key sites of power. Whilst the SACP must strengthen our revolutionary Alliance, and must not seek to usurp the specific strategic roles of our Alliance partners, it must at the same time not allow its influence and hegemony to be only mediated by other alliance partners. The Party cannot be subjected to the relationship with, for instance, the unions on the basis of financial relations.

6.5. In other words, the fact that we are in an alliance with COSATU must not mean that the SACP can only access organised workers through COSATU or its affiliates. The Party must have its own independent presence amongst workers, both organised and unorganised. What programmes do we need to undertake to fulfil this requirement?

6.6. Similarly, while continuing to deepen the alliance with the ANC and developing direction to the politically organised masses, the Party must, simultaneously, consistently and systematically build and develop independent working class and communist leadership of society as a whole in terms of our perspective of building working class power and hegemony. Dialectically, this is important both for the SACP in, and for, the Alliance.

6.7. In line with the preceding points on COSATU and the ANC, we will have to carefully analyse the challenges facing our allies, and also better anticipate what kind of, for example, the ANC we are likely to have in the next 5, 10 or 20 years. Of course we are not spectators, we are part of the ANC, and we should also be engaged in an intense discussion on what kind of the ANC we would like to see over the next decade or so. In addition, as an integral part our society as led by the ANC, that discussion is relevant even more relevant. What role can communists play to build such an ANC?

6.8. As part of addressing the issue, we have to undertake a basic SWOT analysis of the current conjuncture in our organisational review. For example one of the major opportunities to build an even more radical ANC is the current commitment by the ANC to a second, more radical phase of our transition. This, coupled with the current crisis of capitalism and the related crisis of neoliberalism, provides a fertile ground for an even more left-oriented ANC.

6.9. However, there is a 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. Elements of this parasitic (and not patriotic) bourgeoisie are the 1996 class project (which tried to legitimate being parasitic through narrow BEE) and the new tendency which sounded radical to hide their stealing from the state. We must not underestimate the possibility of these strata closing ranks against the left, despite their own different factional interests.

6.10. Grappling with the above issue it may be necessary that we undertake some scenario planning as a component of organisational review. Although sometimes scenario planning has the undesirable effect of turning motive forces into spectators, we must avoid this by ensuring that whatever scenario planning we do is anchored on class analysis, rather than abstract speculation.

6.11. Organisational review processes must also be linked to the question of the SACP and state power discussion and process. It is important that the question of the SACP and state power is not tackled in isolation and independently from the task of building working class hegemony and power in all key sites of struggle and power. It must therefore not be separated from the task of organisational review. It is important to try and settle this debate by pointing out that our ultimate goal is state power for the working class, and that the SACP, irrespective of the phase of our revolution, will always have a particular relationship to existing state power and its configuration, whether inside or outside government or both. The Party comes from, and must be rooted in, it must develop itself as the leading force of, the working class.

6.12. To remain relevant the SACP cannot afford to be a shadow of the ANC led liberation movement imposed by the current dispensation. The Party must engage the Alliance about its independent role in the context of consolidating, deepening and advancing the NDR, including, in expressing its own voice in parliament and legislatures within the framework of the alliance. What role should the alliance play in this regard? Could this critical matter be left to the goodwill of the ANC in the main and the Alliance in general? The SACP needs to take up the matter of the relationship with the state and the reconfiguration of the Alliance much more seriously. We cannot have a casual approach to a system of concentrated power in modern society such as the state.

6.13. Therefore the SACP should consistently engage with its own relations with the state and state power and utilise that to deepen relations with the ANC and the alliance components. We must openly discuss our Party’s relationship to the state and to the Alliance and pose the question, does the current relationship work for the struggles of the working class?

6.14. In undertaking organisation review it is also going to be important for the SACP to take full stock of the implications of the changing social composition of South African society, especially in the black majority. For instance as the SACP

we have correctly supported a number of important and progressive policies of the ANC- led government that have led to the significant growth of the middle strata.

6.15. The growth of black middle strata is an important achievement of our NDR. From all indications this stratum of our society is going to continue to grow. What kind of attitude and relationship should we seek to forge with the middle strata? For instance, components of the middle strata include professionals and small/medium enterprises. Some of our own campaigns (e.g. the financial sector campaign) have had huge resonance with significant sections of the middle strata, but we have not built on this.

6.16. Equally, we need to ask the question whether we have adapted well to the above mentioned changing class conditions in our society, within the working class, in the trade unions and indeed in the SACP itself and society at large. Subsequent to this we must reflect, also, on how we have responded politically to these developments? How has the changing class character and class reconfiguration of African communities impacted on us as the Party?

6.17. A crucial component of SACP Organisational Review is the need to significantly increase the capacity of the SACP in the battle of ideas. This is perhaps one of our areas of weakness. No Communist Party can be able to advance the struggle for socialism unless it has significant strengths in the battle of ideas. For instance we have a significant shortage of writers and theoreticians; 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 or other reactionary traditions. Our publications have very few comrades contributing.

6.18. In broader media work we were relatively weak and have recently had important improvements. There is still spacious room for improvement. We are also unable to exploit the space of social media to the fullest. A large part of our organisational review 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. One of the critical challenges is how do we can intensify internal political education and writing skills, as well as effectively linking up with our higher education institutions to recruit and also train communist cadres on this front. A document entitled ‘Communication, Information and Media Strategy’ elaborating on these and other considerations has been developed for internal consumption.

7. Political education and ideological training, diversifying our methods.

7.1. We need to explore creative ways to integrate the Communists University or similar alternatives into the daily life of the SACP. In that regard, we perhaps need to look at bringing the Communist University more to the functional co-ordination of the Central Committee. The Party should strengthen the efforts and contributions of comrades who have managed to keep the Communist University alive and vibrant through stimulating engagements. We need to ensure that all provinces in the long run are able to run their own chapters of the Communist Universities, including, in vernacular and popular languages of the people on the ground and even cascade it to the district level. But given that this is co- ordinated nationally we do not need to rush this aspect but pay special attention on content as it drives the organisational programmes through this medium.

7.2. We need to redefine the concept of Full Time Professional Revolutionaries in the concept of dedicated service to the people.

8. What are the structural and institutional forms and requirements of Party organisation?

8.1. We have to focus attention on the efficiency, functionality and relevance of Party organisational structures, from national to branch level. We have to look at the structures of other communist parties, but at the same time structure our Party to suit our own tasks and material conditions. This must include an assessment of whether our VD based branches are working, and a reflection on the capacity of our Party structures, especially at lower levels to effectively engage in Alliance, sectoral and mass work.

a. If we say the SACP must be in all key sites of power and fronts of struggle, what kind of districts, branches, units and cells does this require?

b. Presently the Party constitution provides for one form of units and does not provide for cells. Is this sufficient and flexible to different conditions, sectors and social settings?

c. What organogram and what funding model is required of all these?

8.2. The Party constitution does not set boundaries for residential branches. This task is left to the Central Committee, which may set guidelines in term of the relevant provision of the Party constitution. However, the Party Programme, SARS, provides for Voting District based branches. At the 13th Party Congress which adopted the programme, it was resolved that Party organisation and the compositions of its leading organs, including the number of full time elected officials and executive members, must be flexible and fit in with corresponding conditions and the tasks facing the Party.

a. Are there any further adjustments necessary in those respects?

8.3. Further, there are differences in the characteristics of rural, urban and peri-urban areas; industrial, mining and agricultural areas; city centres, suburbs and townships, as well as in the respective geographical sizes of the wards and Voting Districts. There are Voting Districts in rural areas which are far bigger than wards in urban areas and rural wards that are even bigger than several wards in urban areas combined. In urban areas, Voting Districts are small and smaller than those in rural areas in terms of geographical sizes. Also, while the Party Programme provides for Voting District Branches, it does not provide for organisational co-ordination at the ward level – which can be a political problem.

a. How best should the Party recognise all these different characteristics through a differentiated system of branches, units and cells that is both flexible and responsive to the different local residential and workplace settings given the above considerations and examples?

b. In areas where there are Voting District branches, what structural and co-ordinating mechanism should the Party adopt at a ward level bearing in mind the need for a common approach to common challenges which could face the whole ward, elections and alliance relations?

9. The Do’s and don’ts of Party members:

9.1. The Party may consider during this review process to introduce the basic areas of the dos and don’ts of Party membership.

a. What should those be? We can outline through a discussion what should be associated with Party members and what should not be associated with them. For instance, can we have members who are criminals, who are corrupt, etc.?

b. Equally important, what are the main features of being a Party member? What does it mean to be a Communist? Can we enforce the content of the answers to these questions as part of the critical requirements of Party membership and leadership?

10. Towards a conclusion

10.1. All of the above will have to culminate, as it were, on what kind of SACP cadre we need now and into the next 20 or more years to come. How do we produce that kind of a cadre? What kind of exposure or education do we need to invest in for that purpose? How do we use all the resources available to produce the kind of an SACP cadre we need? Our organisational review process will have to spend a great deal of time discussing this matter and come out with clear plans and programmes.

10.2. These tasks and requirement of building a militant and fighting Party of socialism has become a necessity to survive the ferocious attacks of the brutal capitalist system that is capturing even the modest of revolutionaries. The Party has to equip itself, calculate the risks correctly and develop appropriate interventions in order to advance the struggle for socialism or live forever under capitalist exploitation – which is not an option.

10.3. If the Party is unable to do this it will not avoid the peril of irrelevance and insignificance, particularly if we do not change the way we operate or even perceived to be. This unavoidable consequence needs deep reflections and discussions.

10.4. We extol our comrades to seriously debate the issues as raised in this document, develop effective strategies, organisational and political solutions confronting our revolution.

10.5. The SACP has developed a revolutionary programme of building working class hegemony in all key sites of power, SARS anchored on the strategic focus of the MTV. This programme also emphasises the necessity for the SACP to be in all sites and terrains of struggle, including spelling out some of the key terrains and fronts of struggle which we have mentioned above. In those key sites of struggle and power we are to find important sectors of our society, such as the youth, women, the trade unions, etc. All these and other sectors must be taken seriously. Whilst we must be cautious that the organisational review exercise must not be an attempt to rewrite our programme, it must nevertheless be based on a very concrete understanding of the challenges over the next 20 years or more.

10.6. We need critical thinkers to lay a firm foundation of developing an enduring framework to build a formidable, determined, strong and united revolutionary working class Party in the SACP to lead the struggle for a socialist South Africa, a society free of all forms of exploitation!

Long live the SACP!

Socialism is the Future! Build it now, with and for the workers and the poor!

Chapter 3

Selected international lessons

1. Lesson Number One: The People’s Republic of China

– Communist Party of China (CPC)

1.1. During the visit we learnt some important lessons on Party organization and even challenges faced by the socialist construction in the PRC.

1.1.1. They are facing a similar challenge of compradorial bourgeoisie as we have here of the BEE groupings.

1.1.2. This arises out of their own created socialist market economy and the consequence of unequal and unbalanced accumulation between the urban and the rural areas, even between the East and Western regions and amongst the people based on their deployment including Party cadres deployed in the private enterprises that have invested in the PRC. Nonetheless, the Chinese base their political posture, mainly, from their own research and internal capacity but also use the state institutions as those are under the leadership of the CPC with a nation that also accepts the overall leadership of the CPC.

1.1.3. They have critical research capacity in the various organs of the Central Committee. For instance, our Central Committee commissions would in their case be research units of the CC, which studies their particular sector and makes a presentation to the Secretariat and the PB for consideration by the Central Committee.

1.2. Structure of the Central Committee and its organs

1.2.1. The CC of the CPC remains a big political body of specialists in various fields. It has 205 members elected in the recent 18th Party Congress of November 14, 2012.

a. It meets once in a year through a well- researched agenda of the plenary session. There could be other plenary sessions convened as the need arise during the year.

b. Since the 18th Congress in November 2012, the CPC Central Committee just convened only the 4th Plenary Session on the 1st week of October 2014.

1.2.2. The Congress also elects 130 members of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC. This body is responsible for overseeing cadres discipline and conduct, in line with but broader than the ANC Integrity Commission.

1.2.3. The Discipline Inspection has a Secretary and eight Deputy Secretaries and its own Standing (Working) Committee of 19 comrades.

1.2.4. The 18th Congress CC has 25 Politburo members. Only two are female

1.2.5. The PB elects a Seven members (07) Standing Committee of the PB of the 18th Congress of CPC Central Committee, all these members are full-time

1.2.6. They have the Office of the General Secretary with the General Secretary without any deputy.

1.2.7. They have Seven Members of the 18th CPC Central Committee Secretariat. These are full- time Central Committee members drawn from the PB and Standing Committee. This team oversees the overall daily affairs of the Party and the government.

1.2.8. Then they have the CPC Central Military Commission with the GS as the Chairman and two Vice Chairmen plus eight other members.

1.2.9. The Central Military Commission is important in the context of the PRC because it is the body responsible for stable transfer of power in China. It is also important to note that in the PRC the CPC is the body entrusted with the ownership of the defence force. Whilst the army belongs to the people of the PRC as a whole, it also belongs to the Party. It is a Political army and it is still called the People’s Liberation Army.

2. Lesson Number Two:

The Socialist Republic of Cuba

– Communist Party of Cuba (CPC)

2.1. The CPC is also structured more or less the same as the Chinese model. The difference is that the People’s Congress in China has a huge standing in society even though the Party role remains widely accepted as the vanguard of the Chinese society.

2.2. The primary lesson from the Communist Party of Cuba, is that the majority of Party members are recruited from within the ranks of workers at the shop floor level through the Workers Assembly.

2.3. It is then that a member is identified in terms of his or her qualities and then referred to the Party for recruitment. The Party will then conduct evaluation of the member’s conduct and do neighbourhood assessment or interviews with the member including of his/her family, particularly of the spouse.

2.4. The Cuban society is a workers’ state, so the organisation of workers at the shop floor is taken seriously and organised differently from those in the capitalist forms of production.

2.5. In Cuba, the Workers Assembly is arguably the centre of pride of conscious socialist construction, solidarity and human service by workers.

2.6. The other key example is the method of recruitment and probation.

3. Comparisons and similarities

3.1. Similarities, with the two models are that, all the Parties have come to power through armed insurrection and could impose their own socio economic system and overall societal direction.

3.2. All the Parties have introduced the notion of probation for all members with an extensive training programme before members are allowed into Party life and system. This doesn’t take away the variations and even betrayal by some members who underwent the probation process.

3.3. Members of these organisations follow the notion of the Party mass line. It is also important for the Party to revisit the notion of the mass line in the Party. We have observed that in all the Communist Parties in power that have survived the collapse of Eastern bloc socialism they have kept a basic coordination of the mass line concept and even in Cuba one of the standing pillars is the content of the Party mass line.

3.4. The concept of the Party line has been a major issue for discussions within the communist movement for quite some time. The SACP does not necessary subscribe to this notion but practices the principle of democratic centralism which entails a dialectical combination of democracy and centralism involving ‘Freedom of discussion, unity of action’ (V.I Lenin, 1906; ‘Report on the Unity Congress…’: ‘The Congress Summed Up’).

3.5. Some of the Marxist scholars like the Vietnamese revolutionary Le Duan have written extensively on the concepts with a deeper focus on the notion of the line and the cadre and the relationship between the two. The SACP may wish to develop on this literature as it seeks to perfect the system of Party organisation and streamline it in the organisational review process.

3.6. Both are firm adherents of the democratic centralism system to unite the organisations and to govern society. They all have a quick system of communication with members in their thousands and millions within a short space of time.

4. Some questions for consideration on the selected international lessons

4.1. If these are amongst the core basis of what pulls together and coheres these organisations, how do they relate to our weakness in building a strong and disciplined organisation able to lead the struggle for socialism.

4.2. On the international benchmarking we need to check which aspects of their work have been the most successful and why are they successful? It is obvious from the outside that some of the features of their success is institutionalisation of their work.

a) They have full time revolutionaries. We had similar trends when we were outside and in Robben Island.

b) The international experiences are but examples of what our peer organisations are modelled on and how they have over the years sustained growing Party organisations. We have to first consider the obtaining local conditions to ensure we have a suitable environment for what we deem universal and necessary to apply to our circumstances.

5. What are the other questions we must respond to, or we need to emphasise?

5.1. If we are to embark on a huge mass debate by our structures, we have to guide the process not exclusively but on strategic issues. We could even group the questions in the document to be produced according to some key themes and programmatic intents and postulates, namely strategic political and ideological questions, organisational design/modelling questions and organisational building and campaigns related questions. All of these must be considered as mutually reinforcing than exclusive. Some of the questions we may consider as we prepare for the review process could amongst others include the following ten questions for example:

a) What are the strategic political and organisational tasks facing the working class and the South African NDR in the current conjecture and what should be our political and organisational response?

b) What should constitute the key tasks of Party building in each pillar of the SARS – namely in our communities, in the workplace, in the economy, in the state, the international terrain, the ideological terrain, the environment?

c) What are the main challenges faced by a communist party in a capitalist society, that is in alliance with a multi class liberation movement and still remain committed to mobilising for socialism and how does it relates to the state and state power relations and how does this relation influence the organisational review process?

d) How should we engage, attract and bring back the intelligentsia and academics, the White, Coloured and Indian working class and Professionals into the ranks of the revolutionary movement and principled left platforms?

e) Is there inherent contradictions between a democratic developmental state and the mass movement characterised by heightened activism and how has the democratic movement and the Party responded to this question?

f) How should we mobilise the NGO sector to advance transformational, developmental, advocacy and support role than oppositionist and rejectionist posture that is even hostile?

g) What are the SACP’s major ideological, organisational and structural weaknesses, shortcomings and impediments in building an agile, effective, dynamic, militant and strong organisation and how to overcome these?

h) Inversely, what are the SACP’s major strengths and abilities? How to enhance and improve them to realise our strategic ideological political objectives?

i) What are possible implications of Party organisational review process to the Alliance in the next medium- to long-term? How can these be utilised to strengthen and reinforce Alliance whilst building working class power and hegemony in all sites and terrains of struggles?

j) How should we build the SACP as an independent, militant revolutionary working class Party of socialism able to build a strong profile and access to workers, both organised and unorganised? This would also mean aggressively accessing workers outside the main base of COSATU unions.

k) What is the role of the YCL in organisational review process? How should we engage the youth, both through the YCL and independently, in all sites and terrains of struggle in our society including the socialitariat and the entire cybertariat, in the Blogs, Twitter, Facebook etc. to the ideas of socialism, community service and human solidarity and development? Equally related to this would be how to vitiate our different forms of Party building in line with our different communities and social strata and even interests?

l) In all of the above what kind of a cadre do we need to carry out these tasks, and what are creative forms and methods to build this cadre?

Socialism is the future! Build it now!

Build working class hegemony and power in all terrains of struggle and key sites of power!

Issued by the SACP, June 18 2015