On Friday last week ANC Today published the first of a series of articles headed "A fundamental revolutionary lesson." It contains statements which are easy to condemn but which are, nonetheless, important to try and understand.

It was probably written by President Thabo Mbeki, but possibly by an intellectual protégé of his. Certainly, the language contained in the document resembles that used in many of his previous statements.

For example, the startling phrase "the enemy manoeuvres but it remains the enemy" can be found in a January 1999 address of Mbeki's, and in a 2003 article of his as well. An internet search could find no other person who has used these words.

The kernel of the argument put forward in the article is that the national democratic revolution (NDR) constitutes the solely true aim for South Africa. It is only through this transformation of society that the true interests and aspirations of the black majority will be realised - and then will dawn the "bright day of universal happiness."

By describing themselves as the vanguard of this revolution the ANC leadership is laying claim to infallibility. It is only they who can correctly guide the people, for only they can see the one true path and know of the destination to which it leads.

Those who oppose the revolution, or its vanguard, can only do so because they have been prevented from recognising the true will of the people by their prejudices or ill-gotten privileges, or because they have been misled by others.

It is believed, for instance, that the white minority support the opposition only because of "their historical socialisation [into] the false ideology of racism." Thus, the article claims that the Democratic Party secured the support of the "still racist white minority" by adopting the "racist positions of the NP."

More broadly, according to this view, anyone who disagrees with or criticises the ANC leadership places themselves beyond the pale; for to oppose the vanguard is to stand in the way of ‘the people' realising their true aspirations. Thus, even black critics of the party leadership can be effortlessly redefined as enemies of the revolution.

As the article points out, over the past decade the ANC has pursued its revolutionary goals gradually and without violence.

It has, however, sought to extend its influence over all centres of power through the placement of party loyalists (no matter how inexpert) in key positions across state and society. The reason for this is that as the embodiment of the popular will the ANC must, as the article puts it, "assert and exercise" its hegemony "at all times and in all fields of human activity."

What has returned in the article, after a very long absence, is the possibility of the ANC resorting to the "Jacobin option". The author lists all the things the ANC once planned to do, but have not done after coming to power.

"Wisely or not," writes the author, the liberation movement "has deliberately avoided any resort" to this option. "It has therefore not used revolutionary force to suppress and destroy its historical opponents."

Nor had it done anything "to oppress or disintegrate the classes and strata that constituted the white population, including depriving of their democratic rights and property, and destroying the organisations they had created."

It had also "done nothing" to suppress the political opposition or those institutions - such as the universities and the media - which "were inspired by political and ideological perspectives with which we disagreed."

The implication is that the ANC has shown great forbearance by not resorting to these measures, despite the provocations of the opposition and the press. Push us much further, the article seems to warn, and we might lose our patience.  

The author writes at one point that, "despite our identification of various ideas and perspectives as being inimical to the NDR, we nevertheless allowed the proponents of these the task to propagate them."

The suggestion here is that fundamental liberal democratic rights - such as the right to criticise and oppose - are merely privileges handed down to an ungrateful populace, and which could be revoked at any time.

The article does say that the ANC should exercise hegemony on the basis "of the popular and democratic mandate" of the black majority. But the Jacobin option is always a temptation for rulers who claim a unique ability to know and represent the will of that majority.

It might be difficult to resist were the hegemony of the liberation movement to be seriously challenged at the polls. In such circumstances the ANC may well choose - as ZANU-PF did in Zimbabwe - to bring the country down with them, rather than surrender power while the "legacy of colonialism" remained intact.

Yet, although South Africa has moved thirteen years closer to that point at which the ANC loses its popular mandate, it is no more foreseeable now than it was in 1994. Moreover, the ruling party has succeeded - to an extraordinary degree - in making its racial goals the goals of society as a whole.

Institutions as diverse as UCT, the police, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants, are busily working away to make the composition of their institutions reflect the exact racial proportions of society as a whole.

The question is, why is Mbeki (if indeed he was the author) now openly mulling over this extremist option?

For someone so certain of his own infallibility it must be difficult to absorb the kind of criticism he is currently receiving from the press - and the Sunday Times in particular.

Another issue that must be exercising Mbeki's mind is whether the guidance of the revolution could be safely entrusted to someone like Jacob Zuma; or indeed, to anyone other than himself. And, if not, what can be done about it, considering he could well lose an open electoral contest for ANC president at the party's national conference later this year?

Such questions will no doubt be answered over the following months.

The article does suggest that - to use the words of C.W. de Kiewiet - there exists in this government, as there did in the old, "an ugly and sinister self-righteousness which seems prepared to sacrifice the liberty and comity of a democratic society to attain the harsh ends of an imperious racial nationalism."