Critical+year+ahead+for+SACP,+Patrick+Laurence,+The+Star

The Star, Johannesburg, January 02, 2007 //Edition 1//
=Critical year ahead for SACP=

//In July the party will debate the vital question of whether it should contest elections under its own colours//


 * Patrick Laurence**

Looking back to the first two decades of the 20th century, it is fascinating to note that of all the African countries none interested the renowned Russian revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin, more than South Africa.

As Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin observe in the second volume of their massive study of the Soviet Union's Committee for State Security, or KGB, South Africa is mentioned twice in the first issue of Iskra, the Marxist newspaper that Lenin began editing in 1900.

Their explanation is that Lenin and the international communist movement, or Comintern, saw South Africa as the most industrialised and urbanised African country, and thus as the "future vanguard" of the anticipated African revolution.

But it is obvious that those hopes have not been fulfilled and, moreover, that the transfer of political power from the white minority to the black majority in South Africa may actually have made the prospect of a communist government holding sway over South Africa more remote than ever.

While communist, or, more precisely, Marxist-Leninist governments, emerged in several African countries in the turbulent 1970s and 1980s, including Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia and, in name if not in substance, Zimbabwe, nothing comparable has surfaced in post-apartheid South Africa.

The twelve years of African National Congress (ANC) government have been characterised by the rapid growth of black middle and capitalist classes, thanks largely to the adoption by the administrations of Presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki of affirmative action and black empowerment policies.

These classes, as Lenin, and Karl Marx before him, knew only too well, are hardly susceptible to the utopian vision of a classless society.

As newcomers to the comforts enjoyed by the privileged few, they turn a deaf ear to doctrines of proletarian solidarity.

The emergence of the new black elite has been accompanied by an impressive growth in social grants, in terms of the number of beneficiaries as well as the amounts that are paid to individual recipients. The net effect of this has been to anaesthetise large numbers of the poor into resignation of their lot, for the immediate future at any rate.

To make these observations is not, however, to deny that there were times when it seemed as though communist influence in the ANC was approaching a hypothetical take-over point.

High-water marks in communist influence within the ANC include:

· The election of outspoken communist sympathiser Josiah Gumede as president of the ANC in 1927. After visiting Moscow he praised the Soviet Union as the "New Jerusalem". Gumede, however, was too haughty and too ahead of his time. He lost the ANC presidency to Pixley Seme in 1930.

· The ideological shift of Mandela from a pro-Africanist position in the 1940s to one of appreciation in the early 1950s of the role and sacrifices of white as well as black communists in the fight against racism. He remarked that Bram Fischer, a dedicated Afrikaner communist, had in many ways "made the greatest sacrifice of all".

· The rise of communists to positions of great influence in the ANC and its underground army, Umkhonto we Sizwe, during the armed struggle in 1980s, when the ANC was largely dependent on the Soviet Union for weapons.

During that time Joe Slovo, the general secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), served as chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe, of which he and Mandela were joint founders.

For several reasons, however, the SACP failed to translate these advantages into enduring control of the ANC, with the result that it is still an ancillary of the ANC's rather than a commanding force in it.

One reason is undoubtedly the ANC's determination to maintain its essential character as an ideologically broad nationalist movement for the black people of South Africa rather than becoming a doctrinally pure communist party.

Mandela puts it neatly in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom: "The cynical have always suggested that the communists were using us. But who is to say we (were) not using them?"

Another, perhaps more important, factor is the fortuitous convergence of the demise of apartheid in South Africa with the collapse of communism in eastern Europe and, within two years of that, the eclipse of communism in the Soviet Union itself.

The significance of the conflation of the two events can be summarised in a single sentence: as black nationalists prepared to occupy the corridors of power in South Africa, many of the communists in their ranks were hastening to shed their encumbering ideological identity, led, significantly, by no less a person than Thabo Mbeki, his father's status as a respected communist notwithstanding.

A critical year lies ahead for the SACP. Its special congress in July will debate the vital question of whether it should contest elections under its own colours or have its candidates continue to seek election on the ANC list and subject themselves to the discipline of the ANC caucus.

If it decides in favour of contesting elections as an independent party it risks head-on collision with the ANC and, with it, possible decimation in the fight for control of the same constituency of poor black people.

The ANC may even end the special arrangement under which SACP members qualify for ANC membership as well, thereby disqualifying them as potential candidates on the ANC list.

If, however, the SACP opts for the status quo, it may suffer a similar fate to that of the New National Party, which has been ingested by the ANC and reduced to political anonymity.

While the SACP membership has grown significantly since the 2004 parliamentary election, increasing from 20 000 to close to 50 000, the increase has been from a small base.

The increased membership must, moreover, be offset against its loss of prominent senior members, including Gauteng premier Mbazima Shilowa and deputy finance minister Jabu Moleketi, as well as the de facto defection of nominally communist cabinet ministers who have no qualms about implementing policies associated with the gurus of modern capitalism rather than the texts of orthodox Marxism.

The SACP may be seeking power by linking up with the faction in the ANC led by Jacob Zuma in the belief that his newfound populism dovetails with its pro-proletarian policies. If so, the SACP may well be making a grave error.

Zuma is one of those ANC luminaries who, startled by the collapse of communism in eastern Europe and the decline of the Soviet Union, abandoned the SACP at about the same time as Mbeki.

Having been a fickle member of the party in the past, he may prove to be as unreliable as a political ally.

· The Star contributing editor Patrick Laurence is a freelance journalist.


 * From: http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3608835**

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