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Our Medium-Term Vision: What kind of Communist cadre do we need and…what kind of Party are we building?

 * 1) We have declared 2005 the Year of the Communist Cadre. This is not an arbitrary theme. In consolidating a medium-term vision for our Party, we believe that over a decade of SACP struggle on the new terrain of a democratic South Africa many lessons have been learnt, many positive examples generated, and many new challenges have emerged. Central to the consolidation of our gains and the more rapid advance of our socialist programme is the formation of tens of thousands of communist cadres active within our Party and capable of taking its organisation and programmes and those of our broader movement forward. So what kind of communist cadres do we need, and…(these things are closely interconnected) what kind of Party are we building?
 * 2) The kind of communist cadres we need and the kind of Party we are building are critical to the realisation of our vision and goals in the medium-term. But what is this medium-term vision? Can we even effectively deploy communist cadres and sharpen our tactics without being much clearer about what kind of transformations we want to see in our society over the next 10-12 years? Our ability to impact and shape current developments rests primarily on what our overall medium-term vision is.
 * 3) The fundamental goal of the SACP for the next 10-12 years is to ensure that the working class achieves a decisive and qualitative impact on all key sites of power and influence – particularly political, mass and economic sites of power - such that no significant center of power in society can be able to exercise that power without a significant input from, and centrally taking into account the class interests of, the working class.
 * 4) Without generating a wish-list, the objective of decisive impact and influence of the working class in key sites of power during the second decade of our freedom should be characterised by the following concrete outcomes:
 * Changing and transforming the current accumulation regime – at present a regime that is ostensibly and consistently in favour of the capitalist classes – into one that is oriented towards the workers and the poor;
 * Building a conscious cadre able to impact on state institutions and policy, economic institutions and mass formations in favour of the workers and the poor;
 * The harnessing of the multiplicity of mass formations and campaigns into a progressive, working class-led social movement for transformation and socialism, including a working class-led civic movement and a large co-operative movement – what we characterised at the 11th Congress as mass momentum for socio-economic transformation;
 * Building a progressive women’s movement led by working class women and based on a working class programme whilst also unifying the majority of South African women behind a progressive agenda;
 * Using the political and organisational muscle of the working class and other mass formations to regulate and direct significant resources in the private sector towards our developmental objectives;
 * A consolidated and stronger progressive trade union movement with the appropriate organisational, political and ideological capacity, including a decisive advance towards a single trade union federation in our country;
 * A substantially larger SACP, with significant presence and influence and impact in key sites of power. This has important implications for the SACP, including fundraising and financial sustainability, and the political, organisational and ideological capacity of all our structures; and
 * The development of a vast network and solidarity activities of socialist, communist and workers’ organisations, formations, NGOs and movements in Southern Africa, and progressively within the African continent as a whole.
 * 1) These objectives and outcomes are not in contradiction or parallel to the NDR. Instead they are absolute preconditions for decisive advances and significant qualitative breakthroughs in the NDR in favour of the workers and the poor. They are also a necessary dimension towards building an even stronger ANC, rooted in the mass of the workers and the poor of our country. Such a vision should concretely aim to assert the working class as the main motive force of the revolution, and bringing to bear its organized weight on the direction and trajectory of the NDR. This also should provide a clearer answer as to the role of the SACP in the current period, and its role in strengthening the liberation movement, both inside and outside government.
 * 2) Communist cadre-building is not a timeless, abstract task. The Vietnamese communist leader, Le Duan, made the point that cadres have to be built in the context of a specific historical and strategic conjuncture, in the context of specific communist strategic responsibilities and tasks. He makes the point that different phases of struggle will often require different qualities and attributes of communist cadres. Le Duan was not, of course, advocating a heartless dumping of cadres from an earlier phase (say of guerrilla struggle). We must cherish and honour the contribution of earlier generations. Moreover, cadre-development is also about the continuous upgrading and re-orientation of ALL of us, whether we be veterans or youth, long-serving members or newly recruited.
 * 3) What, then, is the general context in which we are now taking forward communist cadre-building in South Africa in 2005? It is taking place in the second phase (the post-independence/post-democratic-breakthrough phase) of a national democratic revolution. It occurs in the context of our liberation movement having consolidated, over 11 years, its electoral and executive dominance of state power (see the “Class Struggles” paper for more discussion on the contested character of state power in SA).
 * 4) Our cadre-building efforts also occur, as we all know, in the relatively unique circumstance of a ruling party (a third world liberation movement) in alliance with a powerful trade union movement, and an independent, long-established communist party. Perhaps even more uniquely, there is considerable membership and leadership overlap between the ANC and the SACP. The SACP’s communist cadre-building challenges occur, then, in a context in which the Party is itself, in a certain (but complex) sense, “in power”
 * 5) We are seeking to build a Communist Party in the context of an NDR and of an ANC-led alliance. We have set as our medium-term vision the goal of developing a clear working class hegemony of our society. In order to achieve this goal we have said that we need to build a party of strategic influence, a party of activism, and a party of power. Influence, activism and power are closely interlinked. Where the Party has developed active and organic links with social movements and a mass base in the midst of campaigning, so we have found that our influence – on government policy, for instance - and our power (or rather the power of the class forces we seek to mobilise) even over the private banks themselves, has grown. This, in very general terms, is the kind of Party we are seeking to build. Obviously, then, the cadres we seek to consolidate within our Party should be equipped for these strategic and tactical challenges.
 * 6) There is much more that can be said about the national and international context of SACP party and cadre-building in 2005 (see the other discussion papers, and our key strategic documents from our 8th - 11th Party congresses). But, very briefly, we have identified the SACP’s key strategic tasks in this phase to be to advance, deepen and defend the NDR, by advancing, deepening and defending the class interests of, in particular, the workers and poor. Our objective is to build working class political, economic, ideological and moral hegemony throughout our movement and society. All of these strategic tasks are inseparable, in the SACP’s programmatic perspective, from the struggle for socialism, a struggle that requires building capacity for, momentum towards and elements of socialism now, in the present.

11. **The Party within the NLM**

a. The SACP seeks to be a vanguard party of the working class within a national liberation movement broadly led by the ANC. This might seem like a contradiction. But, as cde Joe Slovo observed (on the basis of many decades of collective and organised South African communist experience) “if the strategic situation requires that the SACP must help to build the ANC’s leadership capacity then THAT is how the SACP plays its vanguard role.” (We are not saying that this is the only way in which the Party should play a vanguard role – indeed, there are many areas in which the Party has taken, or may have to take, a direct leadership role itself. We will come back to this below.)

b. But why should the SACP “generously” concede the leadership role to the ANC in the first place? The “standard” answer is that “this is the national democratic phase of the struggle” and “the ANC is the appropriate organisational instrument”. This “standard” answer is perhaps partially correct, in its way, but it runs the danger of turning the ANC’s leadership role into some timeless and pre-ordained reality – assigning to the SACP little if any leadership responsibilities in any foreseeable future. It also obscures the fact that at different strategic conjunctures there were somewhat different conceptualisations of, and reasons given for, the CPSA/SACP acknowledging and working to build an ANC leadership role.

c. In the original 1920s Comintern version, the national democratic path was premised on the fact that in many colonial and semi-colonial countries the proletariat was miniscule. In these conditions, communist parties were instructed to build and to work with progressive national movements and to carry forward communist work and agitation within this broader anti-colonial movement whose mass social base would be poor peasants. This socio-economic reality was never strictly true of South Africa for most of the 20th century, although, in the early part of the century the majority of black workers were only partially proletarianised and had not developed a strong working class consciousness or independent working class organisational capacity.

d. Two decades on, through most of the 1940s, the CPSA had become much better organised, much more dynamic and possibly even larger than the ANC, but this was a period of anti-fascist popular fronts, and of progressive broad front international unity against the fascist threat. In this period, the CPSA/ANC relationship tended to be conceptualised in popular front terms.

e. In the 1950s, the CPSA was banned and only re-grouped as a very small and highly secretive formation a few years later. In these conditions, the most devoted communist cadres diverted most of their energies to building the ANC and wider Congress movement. The emerging leadership role of the ANC in the 1950s was, therefore, partly embedded in an NDR strategy, but it was also encouraged by the tactical (and even subjective) realities of the situation.

f. In the late 1960s through most of the 1980s, the organisational priority was the regrouping and rebuilding of a movement that had been badly damaged and scattered. Building a unifying broad national formation (the ANC) was a key (and initially a survivalist/defensive) priority – a movement that could be hosted in independent African countries, that could speak for South Africa’s oppressed majority in international forums, etc. However, affirming the ANC’s leadership role in this period was also greatly encouraged (from a communist perspective) by the radicalisation towards Marxism-Leninism of a number of national liberation movements (Cuba, Vietnam, Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe…and, to some extent, although never formally, the ANC itself). The SACP’s “vanguard” influence upon the ANC was at its highest point in this period.

g. Throughout these periods, the objective inevitability of the NDR strategy was always subject to vigorous debate and different opinions. The SACP’s affirmation of the leading role of the ANC in the present is based on the continued relevance of our NDR strategy – but the relevance of this NDR strategy, and therefore the necessity of working for an ANC leadership capacity, now occurs within a considerably changed reality. The global conjuncture of the 1960s –80s no longer exists. It is a conjuncture which was characterised by the ANC itself in 1969, as “a new kind of world – a world which is no longer monopolised by the imperialist world system; a world in which the existence of the powerful socialist system and a significant sector of newly liberated areas has altered the balance of forces…” It is simply delusional to think that the same global reality still persists. Our changed global reality, and the related character of our negotiated transition in South Africa, on the terrain of an untransformed capitalism, has meant that our important democratic breakthrough has not led immediately to possibilities for a direct transition to a fully-fledged socialist dispensation – something that was seriously contemplated within our movement in an earlier period. See, for instance, the African Communist, 1st quarter 1963: “under South African conditions the national democratic revolution has great prospects of proceeding at once to socialist solutions.” (cited approvingly by Joe Slovo’s in his 1976 “No Middle Road”, p.140.

h. The present prospect of a relatively extended ND second phase is, therefore, in many respects the product of a much less favourable global terrain. This is not to say that the SACP should, for one moment, conceal its communist perspectives or intentions. Nor are we hypocritical about our commitment to the NDR. The NDR is not a misfortune that we patiently endure for the time being, hoping to reverse it all “when our time comes”. A national democratic transformation of our society is a progressive (if class-contested) process, and it potentially (and in our case so far factually) creates the space for many advances for the working class and poor – provided, of course, the working class and the poor take up the space actively. Indeed, in our international and national conjuncture, the consolidation of a deep-reaching NDR is the most direct route to socialism. But, because our struggle is occurring on a global and national terrain dominated by capitalism, any socialist struggle is likely to be largely a “war of position” (a struggle to gain capacity for, momentum towards and elements of socialism), and not a “war of movement” in which a rapid and frontal class-on-class offensive is possible. (It should be said that, precisely for this reason, our opponents have sometimes sought to goad us into such an offensive – or presented our programmes as being based on such an “ultra-left” strategy - the better to isolate and smash us). Conversely, our own domestic situation and strategic openings in the global terrain do not foreclose struggles to advance our socialist strategy even on a global and national terrain dominated by capitalism.

i. Increasingly in the last several years, we have learnt that a general acknowledgement of the ANC’s leadership responsibilities does NOT mean that the SACP should refrain from actively and boldly providing leadership in its own right, when and where the occasion requires. There are several areas in the last period where, frankly, for a variety of reasons the ANC has not been able to provide effective leadership – building an organic link to the progressive trade union movement or other social movements, the land question, the transformation of the financial sector, the economic empowerment of black workers and poor, Zimbabwe, etc. Ultimately, ANC weaknesses on these fronts are related to the multi-class character of the ANC. Where the SACP takes up a leadership role it is not from an oppositionist standpoint, nor, therefore, is it about competing with, or showing up the ANC. Winning ANC support for and leadership of a much more active and radical land reform programme, for instance, is precisely part of what we are seeking to do. It makes a lot of sense – the ANC has state power, and a massive electoral base. But the SACP is not going to wait for the ANC to provide leadership where this is not happening adequately.

j. The communist cadres we are building in the present need to grasp this relatively complex strategic, tactical and organisational reality. Our communist cadres need to work tirelessly to maximise the influence of the SACP, and the hegemony of the working class within the NLM itself and within all sites of influence and power in our society This is not a sectarian or factionalist task. It is not about fomenting palace coups in ANC leadership structures. In fact, the battle against factionalism and sectarianism within the ANC is precisely a struggle to ensure that the ANC is not overwhelmed by a politics of intra-elite manoeuvre, gate-keeping and patronage, a struggle to ensure that the organisational character of the ANC remains open to genuine popular influence and participation. It is, above all for this reason that Communists should set the highest example of respect for the democratic and constitutional procedures of the ANC (and all other formations in which we participate).

k. This is not to say that as Communists (and ANC members) we are indifferent to the quality and character of ANC leadership, at all levels. However, our principal concern is not to have a “red” list, or Party domination of ANC elections for its own sake. We want to see an effective and representative ANC collective leadership at all levels, capable of unifying the widest range of revolutionary motive forces within our society. In particular, we want to see an ANC collective leadership that is, at least, sympathetic to the working class, the Communist Party, and the alliance. But we are not seeking to transform the ANC into a crypto-communist organisation. We already have the SACP – why have a second “communist” organisation? We recognise the ideological and class diversity of the ANC as an essential and important positive feature. This ideological and multi-class diversity is precisely why the ANC is a useful to terrain to contest for the hegemony (as opposed to the unilateral dominance) of the working class. The ANC is, potentially, an organisational site from which the broad South African working class can provide hegemonic leadership to a range of patriotic and democratic forces.

l. Relative to the high-point of SACP ideological hegemony within the ANC (from the late 1960s through to the 1980s), it is obvious that the SACP’s influence within the ANC has diminished in the last 15 years. The changed global realities and the new emergent class realities within the ANC itself are among the obvious reasons for the relative diminishing of SACP influence over the ANC. However, the Party’s influence within the ANC remains considerable and has certainly been strengthened in the most recent period through mass struggles and increasing rootedness amongs the masses. These emerging forms of Party activism and influence within the NLM are less likely to be marginalized than the variants of Party influence in earlier decades.

m. The past decade has proved to be very complex for all of our alliance organisations. But given its particular role and centrality, some of the new realities have most affected the ANC. The great majority of its leading cadres are in government and unable to devote substantial time to the organisational and mobilisational work of the ANC itself. The ANC has battled recently with resource constraints, and it has battled to sustain quality full-time cadres. The organisational life of ANC branches and regions has often been reduced to an annual scramble to quorate, and branches are affected by gate-keeping, careerist positioning, the migration of professionals to former white suburbs, and many other realities linked, paradoxically, to the very advances we have made in the last decade. Outside of elections the ANC has struggled to lead and sustain popular mobilisational campaigns. These are all criticisms that the ANC has made of itself (and we should add that ALL of our formations, including the SACP, are subject to these challenges, perhaps in differing degrees). However, since cadres are built through dynamic organisational experience and through campaigning and general activism, it is clear that the reproduction of effective ANC cadres is not something that can be taken for granted. The SACP (and the YCL), without any arrogance, need to understand that cadre building for the ANC is also a responsibility that we must partly assume.

12. **The Party and the National Question**
 * There is a tendency among SACP cadres to contrast themselves with a “nationalist” current within the ANC. It is easy to understand the circumstantial reasons for doing this, but it is mistaken not to appreciate that the struggle for socialism is also a class struggle over the meaning and content of African nationalism itself. African nationalism is not something that communist cadres should abandon to so-called “nationalists”.

a. In the latter decades of our anti-apartheid national liberation struggle, the ANC was very clear that “our’s is not a civil rights struggle”. We were waging a national democratic revolution, we said. We were not fighting for the “rightful” inclusion of the majority within a pre-existing democratic order. The NDR was directed at the systematic abolition of colonialism of a special type – and, as the Freedom Charter and many other strategic perspectives made clear, this systematic abolition was not just directed at a change in political dispensation, as important as one-person one-vote is. In the recent period, post-1994, however, there has been a tendency to revert back into a black nationalist, but liberal (often individualist), civil rights discourse. Economic transformation, for instance, is presented as being about “increased black participation” in the (capitalist) economy – as if millions of Southern African proletarians have not been the back-bone participants in our modern economy over more than a century. The class content (and class blindness) of this call for “participation” is obvious.

b. Some recent statements by some of our comrades in the movement are a fairly classical representation of the point we are making above: “Every South African has a right to engage in any lawful business activity they wish…People did not struggle because they want to be poor. They did not struggle to become workers for the rest of their lives. Those who are able to cross the Rubicon should do so.”

c. This is the nationalism of a rising upper-stratum (of “those who are able to cross”). This nationalism probably has its legitimate place within our broader liberation movement. But this self-righteous claim, and the underpinning ideological and strategic perspectives that inform it, cannot be allowed to provide the programmatic cornerstones of our NLM, these emerging class forces are simply incapable of leading a thorough-going national democratic revolution. It is precisely this kind of nationalism that has played a central role in the stagnation of ZANU-PF.

d. Likewise, international policy is often couched in the language of South Africa (or Africa) “taking up its rightful place in the global community” – as if this “global community” were not a deeply oppressive, imperialist-divided reality. In both the “economic empowerment” and “global rights” cases, revolutionary struggle for transformation tends to be obscured.

e. Because it is tending to obscure the need for major mass-driven transformation, these variants of African nationalism tend to portray the past as either a personalised struggle for personal advancement (as in the quote above), or as decades and centuries of oppression, misery and suffering. As a critique of the terrible ravages on our country and continent of the slave trade, colonialism and apartheid, it is, of course, entirely correct to remember this horrific suffering. But, again, what tends to be obscured are the decades and centuries of collective resistance, of grass-roots resilience, of peasant, working class and poor activism, of popular agency.

f. We also see this tendency in, for instance, the “two economies” debate, where the liberal-variant of African nationalism portrays the so-called “second economy” in almost entirely negative terms – it “lacks” capital, skills, information – (which, when they are unpacked, tend to be capitalist capital, and skills and information relevant to capitalist exploitation). The SACP has argued, by contrast, that this reality (the so-called “second economy”) should not be defined simply in negative terms, in terms of what it actually or supposedly “lacks”. The so-called “second economy” should also be appreciated for what it is (a zone of production of use-values – including consumables, transport, care, leisure and culture - for workers and the poor). It should be appreciated for the relevant skills and relevant entrepreneurship it has demonstrated (a mini-bus industry that transports 64% of all commuters, for instance), and for the values of social solidarity and cooperation that are often to be found within it (in church congregations, stokvels, burial societies, and general neighbourhood activism) – often to a much greater degree than in the so-called “first economy” with its gated-suburbs and dog-eats-dog JSE. Obviously we should not romanticise the reality of the townships, squatter camps and villages of the working class and poor. There is much suffering and there are many negative phenomena – crime and gangsterism, shack-lordism, the exploitation of female household labour, etc. But to conceptualise the lived daily reality of the working class and poor as “wilderness”, as a zone that has “failed to cross over” (to the board-room, to BMW ownership, to the golf-course) is, once more, to unwittingly deprive the popular masses of culture, capacity, power and agency.

g. It is in this context that we say that the cadres of the SACP must take up the (class) struggle over the meaning and content of African nationalism in the South African reality. The nationalism of the great majority of our people is, as we know, a nationalism of grievance and a sense of a grave, collective historical injustice whose legacy persists in many ways. Liberal and working class variants of African nationalism both share this common base. But working class and popular African nationalism goes beyond grievance to assert a nationalism of capacity, of resourcefulness, of struggle, of an alternative collective power, of popular agency. This is what makes the black majority of workers and poor the leading motive forces of the NDR.

h. In his 1970 Eduardo Mondlane Memorial Lecture (“National Liberation and Culture”) Amilcar Cabral writes: “culture is for the people an inexhaustible source of courage, of material and moral support, of physical and psychic energy which enables them to accept sacrifices – even to accomplish ‘miracles’”. As SACP cadres we should approach the national question from this kind of perspective.

13. **A Party and a cadreship of activism, organically rooted among the workers and poor**
 * From all that has been said above, in section 10 in particular, the relevance of the SACP’s shift over the last four years towards a much greater emphasis on active campaigning and mobilisation should be clear. Our financial sector campaign, our land and agrarian campaign, our work on cooperatives, our ongoing work with and within the trade union movement, our advancing the strategic perspective of “sustainable households and communities”, and our organisational directive (now also adopted by the ANC) to “know your neighbourhood”, all bring together the strategic and tactical issues that we have dealt with above. The common thread that runs through all of them is our commitment to ensuring the sustained mobilisation and organisation of the key social motive forces of the NDR – the workers and the poor.

a. To succeed in these tasks it is imperative that we build tens of thousands of communist cadres. Conversely, it is precisely through these programmes of action that a new communist cadreship is being forged. But what are the lessons we can learn from these efforts, and what are the responsibilities and requirements of our cadres?

b. The Party and its cadreship have a vanguard role in these programmes of action. This vanguard role is one that has to be won in practice, through hard work, discipline and sacrifice, and through the capacity to provide strategic, political and organisational leadership. The role of communist cadres in these campaigns is to help draw strategic links between individual, localised and sectoral grievances and concerns, and to direct popular energies and aspirations towards both winnable immediate demands (to build confidence and momentum), as well as towards longer-term goals that have a transformational impact.

c. But a vanguard role cannot simply be asserted. Nor should it be confused with “vanguardism”, an arrogant assumption that we “know it all”, and that we can manipulate other formations and social movements “for the good of the cause”. Our recent experience has confirmed that indeed a Marxist outlook and analysis can help to provide strategic leadership to a wide range of social forces (trade unions, churches, NGOs, social movement formations). The Party’s leadership role in the financial sector campaign and in the emerging land and agrarian campaign is, for instance, willingly acknowledged and welcomed by a wide range of forces.

d. At the same time, however, we are able to play this role because we are also open to the influence and have appreciated the specialist skills of various academic think-tanks, and professionals in the public sector, and we have learnt from the localised or sectoral knowledge that many progressive formations, including religious communities, bring.

e. This openness of the Party and its cadreship must, of course, also extend to poor communities themselves. We must guard against arrogance. We must be careful of parachuting in with Marxist dogma, or formulaic approaches. We must appreciate that townships and rural villages are, precisely, not empty “wildernesses”. This applies particularly to our campaign to help build a cooperative movement in South Africa. It would be incorrect for us to reduce the campaign to a mechanical launching of “one communist co-op” per SACP branch – as if there were no coops, of one kind or another, already existing in every township. Facilitating and empowering a cooperative movement requires working with the cultural, social and economic realities of our communities. The objective of a cooperative movement is not coops for their own sake but as a contribution to building sustainable communities and households, which is to say – building working class capacity, confidence and relative independence from capitalist exploitation.

f. Respect for working people and their communities and organisations, learning from their experience, and not just teaching them, are key requirements of communist cadres – and is central to the call to “know your neighbourhood”. But this does not mean that we should pander to everything in these communities. Cabral, in the passage we have just quoted, goes on in dialectical fashion to note that popular culture, this “inexhaustible source of courage” is “equally, in some respects, …a source of obstacles and difficulties, of erroneous conceptions about reality, of deviation in carrying out duty, and of limitations on the tempo and efficiency of a struggle…”

g. We have already noted the many negative features that are also to be found within our communities. In particular, there is the challenge of overcoming patriarchal values and practices that oppress women (and young people). This is an important moral issue, but it is also a very practical political concern. From our experience in the financial sector, coops and land campaigns it is obvious that women are often in the forefront of community-based struggles – this is because apartheid capitalism (exploiting and exacerbating traditional patriarchal values and customs) has placed, over decades, the burden of family and social reproduction on the unpaid labour of women. Millions of women have refused to be simply the victims of this oppression. They have turned their marginalisation into a countervailing capacity and power, a shock-absorber in the face of the coercive unpredictability of the capitalist market. In the SACP we have chosen to honour cde Dora Tamana as an exemplary embodiment of the long and heroic practical struggle of women to sustain households and communities, to build a better life for their communities and people, pioneering coops, food gardens, community-run crèches, and struggles against food prices and hoarding – all in the context of a broader socialist struggle. The HIV/AIDS pandemic and its consequences have placed additional burdens on the often unrecorded and unpaid labour of women. These women-led traditions of organisation and cooperation are an important working class resource in the battle against capitalism. The SACP must learn from these traditions, and we must affirm and assist those who are involved.

h. To be able to carry out this work, it means that Party structures at all levels must work to free themselves of patriarchal attitudes and practices. In what ways – organisationally, in style of work and debate, in practical arrangements – do our own party structures disqualify or undermine women comrades? Are there still Party provinces, districts and branch level structures that practice gendered job reservation, expecting women comrades to do the catering, for instance?

14. **A Party of involvement in and influence upon the state**
 * The past century is littered with unhappy examples of revolutionary parties and radical national liberation movements failing to sustain their revolutionary momentum once in power. Cults of the personality, administrative commandism, autocratic bureaucratism, and serious internal problems of factionalism, patronage networks, the emergence of a party/state elite (a “nomenklatura”), parasitic abuse of state power and general corruption have, unfortunately, been features of this kind of decay. In turn, these developments reinforce and are reinforced by leadership stagnation, the reproduction of a younger “cadreship” of acolytes, praise-singers and opportunists, and the failure, therefore, to reproduce new generations of serious cadres. In turn, this results in inevitable problems of ageing leadership and blocked or tempestuous succession challenges. All of these phenomena are linked to a growing distance of the party/state elite from their historic mass base. The resulting grass-roots restlessness and localised mobilisation against corruption, abuse and incompetence, are often attributed to “external” conspiracies, which in turn fosters a climate of distrust, wild allegations, a resort to repressive measures and demagogic mobilisation. It is obviously possible to recognise much of this in what is unfolding in Zimbabwe at present. But, as the SACP, we should readily acknowledge that this kind of grave degeneration has not been a monopoly of African (or third world) liberation movements alone. The collapse of the former Soviet bloc in the early 1990s was not exclusively the result of ruling communist party decay – but this was certainly a major factor.

a. Is this post-revolution/post-independence ruling party decay inevitable? Anti-marxists claim that the stagnation in the Soviet bloc was “inherently” associated with the “totalitarian” nature of Marxism-Leninism. Many left oppositionists regard the decline of, say, ZANU PF, as the “inevitable sell-out” of “nationalists”, and they go on to argue that any NDR strategy is “bound to fail”. In rejecting these arguments, we should, nevertheless, be prepared to look self-critically and robustly at our Marxist and national liberation legacies. This is a process that has been underway within the SACP through the past decade and a half, especially in regard to the communist legacy. Joe Slovo’s “Has Socialism Failed?” and the inner-party debate it helped to open up has been a crucial contribution to the process of Communist self-criticism and socialist renewal within our country, but also internationally.

b. The awkwardness and general failure to provide adequate leadership from within our broad movement in regard to the unfolding reality in Zimbabwe is, in part, a symptom of a collective debate on post-liberation state formation and class dynamics that has yet to be adequately engaged. From the side of the SACP, over the last two years, we have more and more actively engaged the Zimbabwean issue (both in theory and practice) to mobilise solidarity for Zimbabwean workers and progressive forces…but also to open up a debate around the lessons of national liberation movements in power.

c. Over the past decade the SACP has endeavoured to avoid the twin dangers of: either the comfort zone of many social movements§ that adopt an oppositionist, anti-politics politics – declining the challenges and responsibilities (but also revolutionary possibilities) of engaging with and in state power; or the comfort zone of complacency about state power and§ “unassailable” electoral majorities, while going into denial about the many sad lessons around post-revolution/post-independence decay.

d. With all of these qualifications, we assert that the breakthrough of 1994 has presented the Party with a new terrain for direct engagement and active involvement – the terrain of state power. Here we encounter another paradox. As we have said above, relative to the high-point of influence in the 1970s through much of the 1980s, the party’s influence within the ANC has diminished, but it remains important and has grown again somewhat in the last period. The relative diminishing should not shock or scandalise us. With the ANC a ruling party, with a 70% majority, and the probability of a long incumbency, the struggle in around the ANC is a struggle with very high stakes. 15 and 20 years ago the national and international bourgeoisie still hoped to smash the ANC. Now the predominant strategic approach from the side of capital is to engage, support, influence and even join the ANC. However, precisely because the ANC is a well-entrenched ruling party, even a diminished Party influence still translates into a massive gain in the SACP’s influence and capacity to impact upon the broader South African reality through our access to state power. We are, in a complex sense, a “party in power” ourselves.

e. A significant part of the Communist cadreship we are building is a cadreship that is already located within the state – in local councils, in legislatures, in provincial and national executives, and in the state administration. All that we have already said about communist conduct within the ANC applies to communists in these institutions. Communist cadres in these positions must not conduct themselves in a sectarian and factionalist manner. But they should also never cease to be communists, nor should they ever be embarrassed about their affiliation.

f. How does the Party benefit from the very significant presence of communists in the state? And how does the Party help to support communists in their public sector/governance professions? Are our Party structures as presently aligned adequately for this cadre-building challenge? What is our assessment of our Parliamentary Discussion Forums? Are they, at best, too much “discussion” forums and too little oriented to concrete tasks?

g. The direct participation of communists in organs of state is not the only, and it is not even the most important means for realising SACP influence upon the state. Our most effective impact on the state has come through sustained popular campaigning, through bringing popular weight to bear upon policy formation and governmental implementation.

h. Nevertheless the fact that a significant proportion of our cadreship is active in organs of the state is an important asset for the Party. But it is not an asset without its own complexities. There is a very real danger of careerism colliding with Party duties and responsibilities to the detriment of the latter. There is also, obviously, the reciprocal danger that Party comrades will place unfair expectations upon communists in governmental positions, bearing in mind that these positions have their own mandating and collective disciplines. We must, however, vigorously guard against the abuse of the Party. We must expect all of our cadres to be loyal to the Party and its decisions, and, at the very minimum never to attack the party or undermine its credibility, its strategic perspectives, and values. Conversely, Party structures at all levels, must seek to assist, build and enhance the work of all ANC ministers, MPs, mayors and councillors – not least, but not exclusively, those who are also communists.

i. The class agenda directed against the Party, constantly seeks to present us as being - and even to goad us into becoming – oppositionist. This agenda had some success from around mid-1996, succeeding in raising the levels of antagonism between the Party and some of the key ANC comrades in leading government positions. From the SACP side (not, perhaps, without some initial mistakes on our part) we have paid systematic attention to overcoming this schism. This does not mean that the Party should tamely agree with government policies where we believe these to be problematic, but we should never position ourselves (or be positioned) as oppositionist. Part of our cadre-building endeavours should be seen in the practice of engagement with, for instance, ministers and their senior staff in central committee meetings, etc. What can we learn from these endeavours in the recent past? How can we replicate these kinds of engagements at the provincial, district and branch levels? Are our provinces/districts/branches spending sufficient time and energy on taking co-responsibility for governance.

15. **Cadre-building and the SACP**
 * At the end of the day, all of the above challenges can only be met if we continue to build a strong and effective SACP. If, as Le Duan says, cadres are built, not in the abstract, but in the context of a specific conjuncture, then it is equally true that communist cadres are not built outside of the experience of a collective, organised communist party organisation.

a. This means that as cadres we must take seriously all of our organisational duties, the small day-to-day, as well as the larger responsibilities. Attending meetings, being punctual, ensuring that meetings are well run and effective – these are small tasks, but they are part of being a communist cadre, part of the seriousness we are trying to instil, and they are part of ensuring that the party actually achieves the impact it must.

b. One major measure of seriousness and one key duty of communist cadres is the payment of dues and of levies. Is it possible for there to be members of a communist Party who decline to pay their levies (calculated strictly on the basis of a capacity to pay)? Should the membership of those not paying levies not be lapsed?

c. The responsibility for fund-raising for the Party does not end with dues and levies. All Party members have a responsibility for fund-raising activities. These should not be seen as a-political activities – selling Party publications and merchandise, organising fund-raising events, etc. are ways of engaging with communities, knowing our neighbourhoods and building an organic relationship and answerability to our mass base.

d. The SACP has a long history of, and an ongoing responsibility for the development of Marxist theory and analysis. Many comrades join our Party precisely because of their desire to “know more”. The theoretical work of the Party must never be merely intellectualistic. We must avoid the danger of dry scholasticism – treating the Marxist classics (for instance) as holy scripture. We must integrate Marxist study into our programmes of action. Our “know your neighbourhood” campaign is, for instance, not just about learning from our communities, it is also about collective discussion, reading and analysis, so that we bring theory and practice constantly together. In our theoretical work, the cadres of the Party must appreciate the collective nature of theoretical work, and we must, as best as possible, ensure that the widest range of comrades participate actively in theoretical analysis and debate. This means, also, paying attention to our diverse languages, ensuring that Marxism flourishes in siVenda or Afrikaans, and not just in English. Theoretical work and debate does not just occur within Party structures. Part of the role of Party cadres is to stimulate and encourage political discussions, debates, seminars, reading groups, forums (formal and informal) in their places of work, worship and study. Progressive politics must become the property of the motive forces of our society – the workers and the poor.

e. As we map out all of the above responsibilities for the SACP and its cadres, we need to constantly ask whether the organisational architecture of our structures is adequate to the challenges. Many of our branches cover vast areas, and the comrades assembled together in a branch may not have the opportunity to see each other and work together except at a monthly meeting – which then becomes rather dry and administrative in nature, rather than being activity-driven. What has been our experience with work-place units? Can we build on this experience? Is there room for other kinds of units (eg. reading groups, or activity units based around particular tasks)? If we develop more dynamic units, how do we ensure that they energise, rather than undermine our constitutional branch structures?

f. We have already mentioned the importance of tapping into and also supporting the work of thousands of communist cadres who are professionally located within the state. How do we best shape our local-level structures to more effectively play this role?

g. Cadre-building is very much connected with building a sense of organisational identity, of commitment to and pride in the history and traditions of the Party. It is also about a sense of commitment to and discipline within an organisation. These qualities and requirements are essential. But these qualities also come with their own danger of narrow sectarianism. Over 150 years ago, in the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels called on communists not to see themselves as a breed apart, as a sect removed from society, and especially not from the broader working class movement as a whole. Communists, they declared: “have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: (1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. (2) In the various stages of the development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.” These words are particularly significant for the SACP, operating as we do in the midst of an alliance led by an ANC that has consolidated a massive popular base over many decades.

h. In the end, the SACP cadre we are seeking to build is a cadre able to maintain the dynamic dialectic of Party pride, commitment, identity, and ideological seriousness on the one hand, while being open, non-sectarian and immersed in the daily life of the working people of our country, and of our broad movement, on the other. We are not seeking to build one single, identical “ideal” cadre. Comrades differ in many ways and they bring different skills and capacities to the struggle. Communists in South Africa are men and women, young and old, from diverse backgrounds. Some of us are religious believers, others are not. In our 1998 SACP programme (Build people’s power – build socialism now!) we said: “The renewal of the socialist project requires an understanding that there is no single way of `being a communist’. There are a thousand ways of being a communist…” (p.68). We stand by this perspective. But this is not to say that there are not key common features and key unifying lines of approach that we must adopt in approaching our cadre-building responsibilities – in this discussion paper we have endeavoured to underline these key features.