SACP+GS+Blade+Nzimande,+Address+to+SAMWU+2006+Congress

SACP GS Blade Nzimande, Address to SAMWU 2006 Congress
=Defend and deepen the proletarian character of progressive unions:=

//Build a strong SAMWU for local economic development and service delivery//

 * Blade Nzimande, General Secretary, SACP**

Cde President Mashishi, General Secretary Cde Roger Ronnie and the national leadership of SAMWU, Leaders of the Tripartite Alliance and COSATU affiliates, international guests, comrade delegates.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank SAMWU for extending their invitation to the SACP to address and participate in this Congress. Congresses are by their very nature, parliaments of the workers, and I am convinced that SAMWU will use this parliament to address the many challenges facing municipal workers in our country.


 * Contesting the direction of our transition: The struggle for the soul of the progressive trade union movement**

Your congress is taking place during an extremely challenging and complicated period in the history of our revolution. Virtually all our formations in the Alliance are faced with complex challenges. As the SACP we would argue that at the heart of all these challenges is the fundamental question of the direction of the national democratic revolution and the motive forces that should be leading this revolution.

Our theory, strategy and tactics tell us that the leading motive force of the national democratic revolution is the working class, in alliance with the landless urban and rural masses. However, there is sometimes a vast difference between our theory, strategy and tactics and the actual reality on the ground. What is the actual reality on the ground?

The reality is that much as South Africa’s working class remains fairly strong and an important layer of South African society, leadership over the national democratic revolution is intensely contested. On the one hand is the white capitalist class, using its resources to sponsor a black section of the capitalist class and seeking to influence the state and some our cadres in the public sector, wants to secure South Africa as a capitalist country by strengthening the accumulation regime underway in our country.

On the other hand is the working class and mass of the poor of our people, waging an immediate struggle for jobs, a living wage, eking a living on the fringes of the mainstream capitalist economy and generally fighting against poverty.

Despite many advances made by our democratic government and the working class over the last 12 years, the SACP is of the view that there has now emerged a new elite consensus, forged around pursuing a path of restoration of capitalist profitability and that a capitalist market economy is the only route to go in our country. This is not going unchallenged, as illustrated by, amongst other things, the growing number and militancy of working class struggles over the last two years.

At the heart of these class struggles is the question of whether the national democratic revolution should have a capitalist character or a socialist orientation. In our view as the SACP an NDR that is capitalist oriented ceases to be an NDR, as it is hopelessly incapable of addressing the complex challenge of underdevelopment and widening poverty in our society. In fact the past twelve years are a proof of the very serious failure by the capitalist market to address even the minimum of these challenges.

All these point to the fact that the capitalist class in particular is aggressively seeking to assert itself as the leading motive force in our democratic revolution. Part of this offensive and the maintenance of the elite consensus, is also to contest our own organisations, both ideologically and through resources. Whilst unions are weapons for workers to defend and advance their workplace struggles, for the capitalist class, unions are a big business. They are, from the standpoint of the capitalist class, a source of the multi-billion rand workers’ retirement funds, insurance policies of different types and with millions of rands for procurement of a variety of services and products.

Part of the contestation for the soul of the progressive trade union is that of compromising worker leaders by turning them into instruments for capital accumulation inside the unions and the problem of kick-backs to secure union ‘business’. This is the phenomenon of business unionism that must be defeated at all costs. The companion to business unionism is that of seeking to blunt the militancy of the unions, seeking to capture leadership positions by people engaged in business unionism.

The only way to deepen and defend the proletarian character of the progressive trade union movement is to ensure that first of all we guard and protect the independence of the trade union movement. There is no contradiction between independence and being part of the alliance, though this is not without its own tensions. What is critical for the working class is precisely to maintain its independent character and organs as the only basis for meaningfully participating in alliance to advance its own interests.

We also have to maintain the militancy of the progressive trade union movement, and fight against all tendencies to turn our unions into sweetheart unions, that meekly succumb and even collaborate with capital and elements within the state which would like to see tame unions. There is an offensive, as I have pointed out above, to capture unions and turn them into meek and tame organisations.

We need to deepen ideological work within our structures and ensure that Marxism-Leninism continues to be the dominant theoretical and strategic framework for our struggles. The SACP remains committed, amongst other things, to continue with joint political schools with SAMWU as the key, but not only, dimension of deepening ideological work inside the trade union movement.

‘Proletarian’ trade unionism also means a SAMWU that actively takes up the struggle for local economic development, ensuring that all municipalities have dynamic IDPs that creates conditions for local development, job creation, delivery of basic services to all and creating sustainable livelihoods. As the SACP we look forward to continued co-operation with some in taking up some of these and many other issues, including the transformation of the financial sector by ensuring that workers’ retirement funds are invested in a developmental manner, as well as the land and agrarian campaign at a local level.

Most important it is important that we build the coherence and unity of our unions and COSATU as a federation. These are the only workplace organs we have to defend and advance the interests of the workers. Therefore we cannot allow this unity to be tempered with. It is for this reason that the federation must be protected at all costs from attempts to smear and slander its leaders, as is currently happening. The only objective of this attack is to divide and weaken COSATU, as part of securing South Africa as a haven for private capital accumulation. The SACP stands for the unity of the progressive trade union movement and our Alliance as a whole. As we have proven over the last 85 years we shall not be found wanting in this regard.

But what do we mean by unity? Unity means disciplined commitment to the vision, ideals and programmes of the union. This also means total dedication to the implementation of the programmes and campaigns of the progressive trade union movement, placing the interests of the workers first and at all times. This does not mean that there should be no debates or disagreements within our structures, but it means debating about how best to implement the programme that advances the interests of workers. Once decisions have been taken after debating, everyone must stick to those decisions, and not go out of our structures, speak to the media as faceless sources, to undermine those decisions. That would be factionalism and business unionism, a tendency that must be fought and defeated in all our structures.

The above therefore means that there can be no unity between disciplined cadres of the movement committed to its goals and programmes AND those hell-bent on sowing disunity and suspicions within our unions and federation. There can be no unity between ‘proletarian’ trade unionism, on the one hand, and business and sweetheart unionism on the other. Any attempt to forge unity between the two can only lead to the liquidation and ultimate destruction of the progressive trade union movement in our country.


 * Developments and Lessons from Latin America**

We are living in a unipolar world, dominated by US, increasingly militarised, imperialism. We therefore should locate our struggle within the global struggles of the working class and the poor. As you have asked us, we would like to reflect on current developments in Latin America, and some of the lessons we may learn out of these developments.

In recent years, there has been some significant left advances in Latin America, interestingly enough all secured through mass-based and mass driven, but nevertheless electoral victories. We shall simultaneously analyse some of the current developments in Latin America and draw some of the lessons for our own revolution.


 * The working class taking direct charge of the national democratic revolution**

Perhaps what marks the possibilities of a new era in Latin America is that the workers and the poor, principally through mass movements, have made it possible to more directly take charge of democratic revolutions without class mediation from the petty bourgeoisie, or the “patriotic” bourgeoisie. Also, more than in the previous two decades, popular revolutionary formations are beginning to master the electoral terrain as an important platform, in the current conjuncture, to advance revolutionary goals.

Of significance in some of the left advances in Latin America is a direct challenge to the otherwise dominant neo-liberal discourse of an ‘end of history’ and that ‘there is no alternative’ (TINA) to imperialist global policies. These advances are also challenging the familiar reformist arguments that “we need to understand the bigger picture”, that popular mobilisation is “populist”, “ultra leftist” and “adventurist”.

Another important lesson from the Latin American left advances, not least in Venezuela, is that of the necessity of ongoing popular participation and mass mobilisation, not only during election campaigns, but as a permanent feature of consolidating progressive revolutions. It must be mass mobilisation based on popular participation in the daily struggles around issues facing ordinary people. It must be mobilisation based on the ‘lived experiences’ of ordinary workers and the poor, not on some ‘feel-good’ opinion surveys, predominantly measuring the confidence or otherwise of the bourgeoisie and the middle classes. This was an appropriate lesson that Chavez taught the Venezuelan bourgeoisie and middle classes in last year’s referendum.


 * The Freedom Charter: A developmental state**

Much as the situation is not exactly the same in each of these countries, but there is a confident reclaiming of national resources and assets by the state, including for instance the re-nationalisation of the gas industry in Bolivia, and the refusal by Chavez in Venezuela to privatize the oil industry.

In a way the lessons of Latin America are to be found in our own programmatic commitments in the past as well as in our own mass struggles against apartheid. The challenge is that of incorporation of these into our current programmatic and government policies. What some of the leftist Latin American governments are doing today is to be found in the Freedom Charter. For instance the Freedom Charter’s commitment to nationalizing the wealth beneath the soil is what both Morales in Bolivia and Chavez in Venezuela are doing. We, as a country, have simply, abandoned some of these policy perspectives. Even where we have done these, like the legislation that the mineral wealth beneath the soil must be in the hands of the people, we are using the state to parcel these out to BEE type transactions, and not strategically used by the state to advance development.

A classic example of subjection of our national objectives to narrow BEE is the recent meeting of the Presidential Black Business Working Group. Instead of addressing the priority challenges of jobs and poverty, black business is complaining that BEE is moving too slowly, in essence complaining about the slow pace of enrichment of a new black elite.


 * Challenges and Lessons moving forward**

The first and most important lesson from both the class contestations over the national democratic revolution and from Latin America is that the working class must lead a struggle for a firm return to the demands as contained in the Freedom Charter. Perhaps, in the interests of consolidating our transition to democracy, the working class entered into some class compromises. It is clear that the compromises that the working class might have made were exploited to pursue a capitalist trajectory of the national democratic revolution.

The Freedom Charter is a programme of our movement, and the working class as the leading motive force in the revolution need to mobilise for implementation of its key clauses. If, as we are sometimes told, that it is not possible to implement some of these clauses, such an assessment needs to be done collectively rather than through technocratic, narrow governmental process.

Another concrete debate, raised by both the SACP and COSATU discussion documents, is that of the relationship of the working class to state power. We need to evaluate this relationship over the past 12 years, and also discuss how we would like to see this relationship unfolding over the coming years. In particular both these documents fundamentally raises the question of whether the alliance as currently structured is in line with the new post-1994 realities. This is a matter that this Congress will have to reflect upon seriously.

Working class mass mobilisation should increasingly take the form of building its power in key centres of power and influence as a concrete way towards stamping its authority as the leading motive force of the national democratic revolution. Part of this mobilisation should consciously aim at disrupting the elite consensus we referred to earlier, and seek to elevate the consensus of the workers and the poor as the only direction of the national democratic revolution. The SACP has identified these key centres of power as the state, the workplace, the community, the ideological struggle and the economy.

The SACP is also of the view that much as we are not about to lead a transition towards socialism in the short-to-medium term, we nevertheless need to re-claim and re-assert the socialist orientation of the national democratic revolution. From the standpoint of the SACP we need to struggle for elements of socialism in the current period. This means, in concrete terms, that we should consciously seek to create a much closer synergy in practice between the SACP’s Medium Term Vision and COSATU 2015.

The concrete challenge is that of identifying key policy interventions that the working class would like to see and mobilise around these as we go into the COSATU Congress in September, the ANC Policy Conference in the middle of 2007, the SACP 12th Congress in July 2007, into the ANC National Policy Conference in December 2007. It is therefore important for SAMWU to clearly identify, at this Congress, some of the key policy issues it would like to see adopted in all these important gatherings as its own contribution towards building working class power in society. It is around these that we should intensify our mobilisation. We must increasingly be guided by own own maxim, just like the left in Latin America now, that we cannot win on the table what we have not won on the ground!


 * With these words we wish you a successful Congress!**

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