The+52nd+ANC+Conference+from+a+communist+perspective



=The 52nd Conference of the African National Congress=

__Prepared for the SACP Johannesburg Central Branch meeting, 2 December 2007__

 * Dominic Tweedie**

//“… this is a rejection of a particular leadership style, but it’s important to realise that the leadership style is not primarily a matter of personalities. It is intimately linked to a policy strategy that consolidated itself around 1996 as the dominant approach in government. The assumption was that change would be delivered through a close working relationship between big capital and the new governing elite. This has been at the heart of the demobilisation of the ANC, the marginalisation of allies and even of Parliament and Nedlac. But market-driven growth and bureaucratic, top-down delivery cannot possibly address the crisis of underdevelopment afflicting our country.”// SACP Deputy GS Jeremy Cronin, article in Mail & Guardian, 30 November 2007

Accepting that Cde Jeremy has got to the heart of the matter, we will come back to it at the end, to ask whether the working relationship between capital and elite will be challenged by an Alliance Pact, or not.

But in terms of the detail we begin our approach to the ANC Conference with the SACP’s **//Resolution on State Power//**. It says that the SACP expects a “reconfigured Alliance” and that the SACP must actively engage the Alliance partners about this, while continuing to building up its capacity and strength on the ground. Meanwhile the existing Party and State Power Commission must continue, and must study international and historical examples. The Central Committee must study the possible modalities and must convene a policy conference within a year (that is, by July 2008) to assess these modalities, which are presently conceived of as //“modalities of future SACP electoral campaigning”// in the following terms:

· An electoral pact with our Alliance partners, which could include agreement on deployments, possible quotas, the accountability of elected representatives including accountability of SACP cadres to the Party, the election manifesto, and the importance of an independent face and role for the SACP and its cadres within legislatures · Independent electoral lists on the voter’s roll with the possible objective of constituting a coalition Alliance agreement post elections.
 * //__Either__//****//://**
 * //__Or__//****//://**

As a vanguard Party of the working class, the SACP naturally pays speedy attention to what the Trade Unions are thinking, and especially to those that are explicitly allied to us, namely the COSATU federation. Prior to its 4th Central Committee (policy conference) in September, 2007, COSATU issued discussion documents and a timetable, called “**//Organogram with key decisions that are required, and timelines running up to 2009//**, which is reproduced here:


 * || **Task** || **Time Frame** ||
 * 1 || Central Committee discusses the framework and hopefully endorses with tight timeframes to finalise || 17 – 20 September 2007 ||
 * 2 || Engagement with the Alliance and win the argument for a Pact || September – December 2007 ||
 * 3 || CEC evaluate progress in discussion with Alliance and decides on the way forward. (November 2007 and February, May, August & November 2008. || November 2007 – November 2008 ||
 * 4 || Depending on the agreements within COSATU and Alliance finalise the Pact contents through mass participation of Congress of the People || December 2008 ||
 * 5 || Draft and finalise the ANC elections manifesto || December – January 2009 ||
 * 6 || Popularising the Pact and the manifesto || January – April 2009 ||
 * 7 || National general elections || April – May 2009 ||
 * 8 || COSATU 10th National Congress to evaluate || September 2009 ||

Unlike the Party, COSATU is not considering “either/or” options. It is already committed. Nor does it think it must wait until as late as July 2008 (although it is by now clearly very far behind its own schedule). It is in a hurry to negotiate the terms of an **//Alliance Pact//** and to work on consolidating these terms throughout 2008, culminating in the further negotiation and adoption of an ANC electoral manifesto.

The detail of COSATU’s Alliance Pact proposal is principally found in the “**//Framework for an alliance governance and elections pact.//**” This document begins by recalling the foundation of its concern that the Alliance should function as a “//political centre//”, and its preference for an //enforceable Pact// over a //loose agreement//, particularly in the Congresses of COSATU. The document is not noticeably based upon, or referenced to, any very precise vision of South Africa’s political economy in motion. Rather, it is predicated upon “//the failure to either secure agreements at the level of the Alliance, or to ensure their implementation by government//”, or in other words, predicated upon politics conceived of as a contractual problem that must be remedied by the creation of better contractual relations. It amounts to a proposal for another, hopefully better and stronger, **//RDP//**, an RDP with more “//radical//” “//process and content//”.

The COSATU document on the **//NDR and Socialism//** relies quite heavily upon our late former GS Cde Joe Slovo’s 1988 “SA Working Class and the NDR” but does not improve upon it. It actually weakens it by introducing ideas of “national democratic state” that are in practice compromises with the new ANC Strategy and Tactics draft. One can note here that none of COSATU’s documentation on these political matters comes with any obvious current input from the vanguard political party of the working class, the SACP. The documents are prepared by COSATU’s own chosen intellectuals and the Party as such is not visibly consulted, until COSATU’s political trajectory has already become a //fait accompli//.

This latter point is clearly emphasised by COSATU GS Zwelinzima Vavi in our extract from the **//speech//** (quoted below) he made **//to the SADTU NGC//** on 7 November 2007. Cde Vavi makes sure to let us know that he is speaking on behalf of a __politically mature__ working class, and about __categorical__ and __emphatic__ decisions taken in what he calls the “//workers’ parliament//”.

It looks as if the COSATU GS is unwilling to have his arguments in favour of **//centralisation//** tested by anyone, not even by the dedicated and recognised (by COSATU!) political party of the working class. But the Party, and our SACP Branch discussions, cannot be inhibited or constrained from the most rigorous examination of these proposals. Nor can the Party, as an Alliance partner, concede to COSATU any priority over the Party in representing the working class, politically.

COSATU has subsequently, following a CEC, on 22 November 2007, issued more detail on these ideas (quoted below), plus a **//[|table of comparisons]//** between COSATU’s and the ANC’s (but not the SACP’s) agreed or proposed positions. The statement says, among other things, that: “//The CEC was concerned at reports of potential distortions of COSATU’s position, which suggest that we are proposing a ‘social accord’, which is something entirely different.//” This is “begging the question”. If it is different, then how is it different? A virus is not a syndrome, and a Pact is not an Accord? This is mere word play.

The 22 November CEC statement also gives more detail than before about the “historic” **//Conference of the Left//** to be called by COSATU on 25-26 September, 2008, and the **//Commission on Socialism//** that has already been set up. The full paragraph states:

//“This historic [Conference of the Left] has been fixed for 25-26 September 2008. A Commission on Socialism has been set up to prepare the agenda and produce discussion papers. The aim of the conference will be to form a united front of organisations that believe in a socialist future and chart the map towards socialism.”//

These structures, frankly, look very much like substitutes for the vanguard Party. It does not do for the Trade Union centre to declare the SACP as its vanguard Party - in the same “//workers’ parliament//” - and then to try to duck around the Party in case it might upset COSATU’s pet project, and then, on top of that, to create bogus, artificial, //ad hoc// and disposable substitutes for the Party.

At this point we can usefully take a look at the points of general principle that may be at stake here. These are the relationship between the **//vanguard//** working-class Party and the **//Trade Union//** movement, and then the related question of **//centralism//**. Just as with the broader national and class questions, it turns out that these two questions cannot successfully be considered separately. The questions of workerism (or economism, or syndicalism) versus the Communist Party, and that of centralism versus **//Dual Power//**, are inseparable. This can be seen time and again, for example in the polemic of Rosa Luxemburg and V I Lenin between 1900 and 1906; in the period of South Africa’s syndicalist “one big union”, the ICU, and in the collapse of the ICU; and in the workerism versus “populism” (or “charterism”) struggles of the 1970s and early 1980s, preceding the formation of COSATU; and in the RDP debates and the disbandment of the **//UDF//** in the early 1990s.

It is not surprising that we are obliged to revise this material. The road to revolution, it seems, must always pass this way, not once and for all, but every time that serious change is on the cards. It is not acceptable that anyone should try to play something like the “//workers’ parliament//” as a trump card, or that the construction of a monolithic “//political centre//” should be taken as a given good, or //a priori// goal. These things need to be tested in dialogue, all over again. If not, then what kind of negotiation can the SACP expect in the matter of the Alliance Pact? Take it or leave it? Shut up and put up?

Luckily, an assistance towards a proper dialogue arrived in the form of the Harold Wolpe lecture on the topic “**//Can Trade Unions lead the Struggle for Socialism//**” given by NUMSA GS Silumko Nondwangu on 14 November 2007. This, and the subsequent e-mail debate on the subject on the **//[|YCLSA Discussion Forum]//**, demonstrated very clearly the need to hammer out these issues once again.

Cde Blade Nzimande’s Umsebenzi Online Red Alert on the 90th Anniversary of the Great October Russian Revolution clearly shows the way forward. It is not necessary to make a virtue of centralisation. Centralism serves the bourgeoisie, because the central state is its only (and only possible) executive committee. The working class can only benefit from Dual Power, which by the way means more than two. It means plural organs of popular power. Nor is it necessary for these organs to destroy the state, or //vice versa//. The example of **//Venezuela//** is given here with more force and accuracy than the quotation of it in the COSATU Alliance Pact document, where Venezuela is naively waved at us like a charm.

The whole question that has been before the working class since at least the 1840s, when Karl Marx was cutting his political teeth in opposition to the anarcho-syndicalists Wilhelm Weitling and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, is that of the necessity of a **//revolutionary political Party of the working class//**.

COSATU now says that there is a difference between a Pact and an Accord. Really? Unfortunately, the difference is not visible. The relationship that is most likely to come out of a Pact is the one called in England the “**//beer and sandwiches//**” relationship, where the workers are called in for beer and sandwiches with Ministers, patted on the head, and sent home with smiles and handshakes.

//“To illustrate this, an international example of the closeness of the cooperation this involves was the structured relationship the **Norwegian Social Democratic Party** had with the **LO** (their Federation) in implementing their programme. The Prime Minister and relevant Ministers, used to meet on a weekly basis, with the Party and trade union leadership, to discuss upcoming issues, and proposals, to receive a political mandate. This was well known and accepted, and constituted the basis to take forward their agreed programme. How far away is this from the situation we have experienced?////”//

This pathetic quote is from the “Framework for an alliance governance and elections pact.” (para 90). It shows very well how the apparent size of a **//Trade Union Centre//** can deceive one into thinking that it is powerful and even revolutionary, when it may just as easily be a big soft thing that just wants a hug now-and-again from important-seeming government people. For all the sound and the fury it may contrive to project, a trade union movement is reformist to the core and cannot ever be a substitute for a revolutionary Party. For all its apparent love of centralism, a Trade Union Centre can never be democratic-centralist and cannot therefore afford to test its political unity in difficult times.

Comrades, the ANC 52nd Conference will no doubt be an occasion for the assertion of working-class power of one kind or another: reformist, or revolutionary. Our business is to keep our eye on the class-struggle ball. Nothing in the Pact proposals we have seen provide an answer to the problem put by Jeremy Cronin, the problem of monopoly capital. Since the Pact does not solve this problem it will have to accommodate it, and then it will be, //de facto//, a class collaboration. Our problem now is to work things out all over again in the working class movement and to build the Party and organs of popular (dual) power as well as SACP electoral capacity. This is the Communist perspective.
 * __Documents previously circulated electronically (with some verbatim quotes below)__:**


 * 1.** **[|SACP 12th Congress resolution on State Power, July 2007]**
 * 2.** **[|Framework for an alliance governance and elections pact, COSATU CC, September 2007]**
 * 3.** **[|NDR AND Socialism Discussion Document for COSATU CC, September 2007]**
 * 4.** **[|COSATU extracts – Vavi to SADTU, & CEC re Alliance Pact, Conference of Left, November 2007]**
 * 5.** **[|Comparison of ANC resolutions with COSATU positions, CEC Annexure 2, November 2007]**
 * 6.** **[|Can Trade Unions lead the Struggle for Socialism?, Silumko Nondwangu, November 2007]**
 * 7.** **[|Dual Power, the living legacy of the Great October Revolution, Blade Nzimande, November 2007]**
 * 8.** **[|Luxemburg vs Lenin, polemic on Party and class, Communist University 2008 programme]**

__From COSATU GS Zwelinzima Vavi’s speech to SADTU NGC, 7 November 2007__:
The decision to demand an Alliance Pact for transformation does not arise out of a confused and politically immature working class. It is a serious political intervention by the working class. It seeks to ensure that we return to the historical conceptualisation of the NDR as a transformative project that goes beyond deracialisation of political, economic and social power.

Faced with all these challenges, workers said the struggle continues albeit under different conditions. But more importantly the workers’ parliament said categorically and more emphatically than ever before, that the current status quo in both economic and political terms is simply not sustainable.

So what is the proposed Pact? The COSATU congress resolution called on the Central Executive Committee to develop “a set of policy objectives … to measure the extent to which the ANC is able to shift to represent the interests of the working class.” The congress then said criteria to measure this shift should include:

1. Implementation of nationalisation provisions of the Freedom Charter, 2. An end to privatisation and commercialisation/commodification of service delivery, 3. Adoption of an economic policy that ensures redistribution of wealth to the poor, and 4. Abolition of legislation that is not worker-friendly.

Further the congress states that these criteria “must include measurable outcomes, with specified timescales so that by June 2008 we are able to assess the extent to which these criteria have been met”

=**__From the__** **__COSATU CEC of 22 November 2007__:**=

The CEC elected COSATU’s delegates to the ANC national conference and reaffirmed that policy questions, not the ‘succession race’, should dominate discussion at the Conference. COSATU is campaigning for the delegates to adopt policies contained in its National Congress resolutions and the many progressive policies adopted by the ANC’s June Policy Conference. We have produced a document (//Annexure 2 attached//) comparing the ANC Policy Conference resolutions with the COSATU’s standing policies in order to educate our members so that they can deepen the already large area of overlaps between the ANC and COSATU policies.
 * Preparation for ANC Conference**

The CEC fulfilled the mandate given by the Fourth Central Committee to finalise the names of other comrades we would like to see serving in the National Executive Committee of the ANC. We are already lobbying to ensure that we achieve the goal of ensuring that the NEC of the ANC broadly reflects its constituency.

The CEC agreed there is a need to engage immediately with the ANC to explain COSATU’s position on the Alliance Pact, and finalise more detailed proposals in a document, which will compare and contrast the ANC, SACP and COSATU positions. The CEC was concerned at reports of potential distortions of COSATU’s position, which suggest that we are proposing a ‘social accord’, which is something entirely different.
 * The Alliance Pact**

This historic conference has been fixed for 25-26 September 2008. A Commission on Socialism has been set up to prepare the agenda and produce discussion papers. The aim of the conference will be to form a united front of organisations that believe in a socialist future and chart the map towards socialism.
 * Conference of the Left**