Speech Delivered by the COSATU president, Sidumo Dlamini, at the SACP 91st Anniversary Rally, Johannesburg, August 5 2012

The chairperson of the SACP comrade Senzeni Zokwana
The General Secretary of the SACP comrade Blade Nzimande

The leadership of the Alliance amongst us Invited guests COSATU feel honoured to have been invited to this important and historic occasion to celebrate the 91st Birthday of the SACP. This means that the SACP is only 9 years to its centenary. In 2021 the SACP will be turning 100 years.

Comrades we have not come here to celebrate the life of an ordinary organisation, but the life of a giant - the life of the South African Communist Party.

As COSATU we say this with a sense of pride and ownership because the SACP is our party, it is a genuine political mouthpiece and the vanguard of the working class. It is our last hope. When everything else is lost we know we will remain with the SACP on our side. We want to declare today for all to know that we are jealous of the SACP and we will forever remain alert to ensure that we guard it against those who seek to liquidate and destroy it, using all sorts of tricks including undermining and attacking its leadership.

COSATU would like to congratulate the newly elected leadership of the SACP from the 13th National Congress. Comrades, you must know that the task of leadership in the working class formations such as the SACP comes with a heavy responsibility. Your most immediate task is to unite all the alliance formations and our movement as a whole. It must be clear that we are not calling for any unity but genuine unity.

The biggest challenge facing our organisations today, in particular the communist movement which include the corresponding revolutionary trade union movement is to fight for Unity within our movement as a prerequisite to our ability to fight the neoliberal agenda. We all have a responsibility to reflect properly and confront those things which have created divisions amongst ourselves.

In my view we should do so not from a neutral stand point but from a class stand point. The first aspect of this standpoint is that we should seek to build unity founded on protecting our class interests and not just workers' interests but working class interests as a whole. Secondly we should seek to build unity that is founded on our responsibility to deepen the National Democratic Revolution as a direct route to Socialism. 

This requires that at all material times we should know what to emphasize based on our common understanding of the balance of forces and what should be achieved at that point in time. Most of our differences are not found in strategy but on tactical postures, in particular around what we emphasise about the immediate tasks of our revolution. In my view what we emphasise should be determined by what we have defined as our primary enemy and not to elevate the secondary to the level of the primary factors to a point where tactical considerations are elevated to strategic considerations.

We must at all times seek to keep the motive forces together and direct war against our primary class enemies. There will be from time those within our ranks who will deviate but how should we deal with them. Do we deal with them as if they were our class enemies or we deal with them in such a way that we seek to maximise unity within the motive forces. Our immediate tasks include elaborating and clarifying ourselves about the principles that should underpin our actions at all material times.

Today I want to emphasise that at the top of these principles must be working class unity and this should be defined in terms of class interests. It is on the bases of this class unity that we should pursue a battle against neoliberalism as an antithesis of the working class interests. Comrade Lenin taught us that "the basis of unity is class discipline, recognition of the will of the majority, and concerted activities in the ranks of, and in step with, that majority. We shall never tire of calling all the workers towards this unity, this discipline, and these concerted activities". 

He said that workers do need unity. And the important thing to remember is that nobody but themselves will ‘give' them unity, that nobody can help them achieve unity. Unity cannot be ‘promised'- that would be vain boasting, self-deception; unity cannot be ‘created out of ‘agreements'... between intellectualist groups. To think so is a profoundly sad, naive, and ignorant delusion. Unity must be won, and only the workers, the class-conscious workers themselves can win it - by stubborn and persistent effort."

The second corresponding task is to define and clarify ourselves to develop a common understanding on who our enemy is. Our view comrades is that our enemy is the class force that owns and controls the decisive monopolies in our country and this is because it is in its direct material interest to keep the vast majority exploited, marginalised from owning the means of production, oppressed and dominated. 

In this context we see the principal enemy of our revolution as being monopoly-capital and white-monopoly-capital in particular. These constitute the real South African ruling class. The power of this ruling class is rooted in its ownership and control of the basic means of production. The mines, the banks and major industries such as forestry, petroleum, steel and large segments of the wholesale and retail sector, are dominated by monopolies. These sectors play a decisive role in the daily lives of our people.

This includes agriculture which is now dominated by large-scale farms and has experienced massive concentration and centralisation. Land-ownership continues to be concentrated in the hands of a minority, especially commercial land. The stranglehold of imperialism on our economy has since deepened during the past 18 years. 

Foreign-ownership has since increased; almost all the minerals that are mined in South Africa, the banks, the monopoly-industries such as SASOL, Arcelor-Mittal, and wholesale and retail sector companies, have significant foreign share-holdings. These developments came in the backdrop of new alliances being forged, essentially marked by the entry of sections of the aspirant black capitalist class, many of which were drawn from the ranks of the national liberation movement.

The dominant ideological expression of our class enemy is neoliberalism. The function of the neoliberals is to protect the interests of white monopoly capitalism and imperialism. By de-regulating labour markets they seek to increase the rate of exploitation of the working class. By de-regulating financial markets they ensure that monopoly capitalists can take profits in and out of the country at will. By liberalising trade they facilitate the integration of the South African economy into the global chains of production, which limit the capacity of the country to industrialise. 

The second form in which the class enemy expressed itself is the comprador bourgeoisie which is made up of two segments: a) that segment of the bourgeoisie that is allied to monopoly capital and imperialism and b) that segment that accumulates on the basis of "corruption".

For the first segment, its mode of accumulation is based on dealings that ensure that the interests of monopoly capital are protected and extended. Inter-imperialist rivalries over the spoils of the country are bound to find expression in the bickering, discord and cat-fights within the comprador bourgeoisie. It is in this context that, if the movement is to maintain its unity and clarity of purpose and policy, this element of the bourgeoisie must be carefully isolated from the ranks of the movement.

The effect of the comprador element is also to mask the true nature of the enemy. Since it has dealings with monopoly capital and imperialism, its approach is to blunt our movement's understanding of the enemy, and to divert attention to issues that are either peripheral, or issues that are "effects" of the underlying class relations.

The comprador bourgeoisie seeks to replace the domestic white capitalist class, or to squeeze itself in the alliance of white-monopoly capital and imperialism, and thereby become part of the exploiters. In this way, it will consistently attempt to discourage the advocacy of the need to pursue the NDR in the direction of social emancipation and it will ensure that the continuous postponement of measures that tackle property relations in a revolutionary way. 

The second segment of the comprador bourgeoisie is those who accumulate on the basis of what is ordinarily called corruption, which is nothing but capital accumulation outside the parameters of bourgeois legality. This segment is not necessarily linked to white-monopoly capital and imperialism. Elements of it consistently seek accommodation in the monopoly capital alliance, and they consistently fail to find a place on the dinner-table of monopoly capital. 

At one point, it adopts the positions of the non-compradorial bourgeoisie, in another instance, it positions itself against imperialism. In this segment too, internal bickering, discord, and rivalries over the dregs of spoils that are left by monopoly-capitalism, particularly the spoils arising from tax revenue and state-debt. The features of the comprador bourgeoisie are as follows:

a) It has dealings with imperialism and white-monopoly capital,

b) It plays the leading role in advocating neo-liberalism,

c) In some instances, its accumulation strategy involves what is ordinarily called "corruption". 

A dispassionate concrete analysis of the representatives of the comprador bourgeoisie cannot be delayed any longer. Just as much as we know who our heroes and heroines are, it is easy to know who these representatives of monopoly capital are. There are contradictions between these two segments of the comprador bourgeoisie. There are contradictions within these segments and between them. The main cause of the contradictions between the "corrupt" comprador and the "non-corrupt" comprador lies in the struggle for space in the dinner-table of the ruling class and imperialism. 

This inter-comprador contradiction inevitably spills over into the movement and presents itself as factional fights and bickering over positions of leadership. Unless the working class and the rest of the motive forces stamp their authority, our movement will continuously suffer from incoherence and discord, and will lose sight of who the strategic enemy of the revolution is. 

When we call for unity in our movement we are not calling for unity with these forces, our task is to unite and isolate these class forces. This emphasis on working class unity derives from the teachings of Karl Marx when he said that "of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie..., the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.

The lower middle class , the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. If by any chance they are revolutionary, they are so only in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat. They thus defend not their present but their future interests; they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat".

Whilst it may important to call for unity in general as we pursue the strategic objectives of the NDR under the leadership of the ANC it is important to prioritise class unity. It is this class unity of purpose which will tilt the balance of forces that can force the lower middle class "desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat".

This will happen if we have a strong organisation that focuses on building its capacity to implement its congress resolutions. As COSATU we have already committed to provide resources to ensure that the SACP is strengthened into a sharp instrument of class war. The terms of providing these resources will not be determined by us but by the needs of the revolution which requires the party to be independent of any influence.

Thirdly comrades we would like to remind comrades that COSATU is also going to its 11th Congress and we are coming from the Policy conference of the ANC, which among others called for radicalising the second phase of our transition. Part of the focus of our Congress will be to define the content of what the ANC policy conference characterised as the second phase of our transition and we would like to work with SACP in defining this radical continent.

As part of this task we want to call on the SACP to start putting more emphasis on rural women who constitute one-fourth of the world's population, but continue to be treated as second citizens in their mother countries. In many countries women still cannot access public services, social protection, employment and markets, due to cultural norms, security issues and lack of identification documents.

The South African Household survey shows that 52% of South Africa's total population is women. Of those, almost half (47%) are living in non-urban or rural areas. Even though there has been advances made in addressing triple oppression but we want to argue that rural women are confronted with the worst situation. For an example the unemployment rate amongst rural women amounts to 53% for all population groups as compared to 37% amongst rural men.

In addition, amongst rural African women the unemployment rate amounts to 56% as compared to 21% amongst rural ‘Coloured' women and only 5% amongst rural White women. The majority of black women continue to live under extremely poor conditions in rural areas which are characterized by lack of socio-economic development and infrastructure, as well as lack of opportunities for employment and income generation.

In South Africa it is an open secret that Black women in general are yet to be liberated from the triple oppression. Most white women earn in the region of R9 600 per month, whereas most African women earn R1 200 per month. The racial income gap in monthly incomes among women is therefore R8 400. The race gap is therefore overwhelmingly severe among males. The gap in monthly income between African men and White women is R7 200. In addition, 56% of Whites earn no less than R6 000 per month whereas 81% of Africans earn no more than R6 000 per month. 

These income disparities are deeply connected to the social relations of production at the factory floor and other places of work, and macro-policies that violate the historical commitment to redistribution. It is as if affirmative action was meant to serve white women who by the way benefited from access of political and economic power through their male counterparts in the past. Today they continue to benefit through affirmative action measures and by association have their male counterparts also benefitting. Actually white males continue to benefit by association through the affirmative action policies which have largely favoured white females at the exclusion of blacks and Africans in particular.

Black and African women still do not have access to development finance, even where government has allocated a budget; its conditions make it inaccessible for women who need it most, the poorest of the poor. The situation remains worse for rural women who are still faced with limited access to education and skills training, which further contributes to a life of poverty. Historically, rural women have lacked access to basic services and opportunities.

Studies show that if rural women had equal access to productive resources, agricultural yields could reduce the number of chronically hungry people by between 100 and 150-million. Studies also show that Women make up more than two-thirds of the world's 796-million illiterate people. According to global statistics, just 39 percent of rural girls attend secondary school. This is far fewer than rural boys (45 percent), urban girls (59 percent) and urban boys (60 percent).

There is a need for attention to improve the life of working class women who wakes in the dark hours of the morning to work for a labour broker, an abusive employer in a factory, in agriculture or in the hospitality industry. We also want to argue that on among others the economic content of the Second Transition must be based on the two economic clauses of the Freedom Charter "which includes "the people shall share in the country's wealth and the land shall be shared among those who work it...

These clauses envisage the seizure of economic assets presently owned or controlled by individual capitalists or capitalist companies drawn exclusively from the white minority or transnational corporations".

The ample experience of the past 18 years has demonstrated that failure by our movement to move towards this strategic perspective will only engender an unsustainable and untenable gulf between the well-to-do on the one hand and the masses of the poor on the other.

This growing gulf in the aftermath of assuming political office by liberation movements has triggered political upheavals in many post-colonial countries and has served to motivate for left alternatives towards an egalitarian vision.

We thus call for the re-assertion of the Freedom Charter, as the over-arching document that should guide the Second Transition. Indeed our movement's proposals on economic transformation have always been centred on the need to implement the Freedom Charter and to advance the proposals of the Reconstruction and Development Programme. The pillars of our economic transformation programme should remain:

a. Redistribution of Economic Power, Resources and Income

b. Democratising Patterns of Ownership and Control of the Economy

c. Meeting Basic Needs

d. Industrial Development

e. Environmental Sustainability

f. The Development of the Southern African Region

The unity and coherency between the SACP and COSATU is therefore not an option but a must. We want the SACP in the 91st Birthday to heighten its call for unity of the working class and unity in the Alliance. We congratulate the party in its 91st Birthday and we will work to ensure that the SACP reaches its centenary even stronger than it is. Amandla! Victory for Socialism is certain!

Issued by COSATU, August 5 2012

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