Trevor+Ngwane+versus+Oupa+Lehulere


 * By Trevor Ngwane,** Received 20th September, 2005

RESPONSE TO COMRADE OUPA'S PAPER ON COSATU, "NEW UDF" AND THE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
=Summary of the paper= Oupa Lehulere is the director of Khanya College and a socialist. His paper is 33 pages long and talks about how we can find a road to socialism in South Africa. He concentrates on COSATU and its call to form a "UDF", that is, an organization which brings together different community and labour organizations fighting against capitalist policies. Oupa does not think that COSATU is genuine in making this call nor does he think anything good (progressive) can come out of communities heeding this call. Rather, Oupa thinks the left must concentrate its efforts on linking up with and building the spontaneous uprisings taking place in the country especially in the Free State. In the paper Oupa attacks the "old left", these are socialists such as Brian Ashley of AIDC, Ashwin Desai, Keep Left and the Socialist Group. He thinks this old left is sentimentally (irrationally) still looking to COSATU for the social force necessary to fight capitalism. For Oupa COSATU is reactionary and class collaborationist. It is not only COSATU leaders who have rotten politics but even rank and file COSATU members have become a labour aristocracy more interested in themselves than taking forward the struggle of the masses. == =Importance of the paper= This paper is important because it is trying to tell us what the way forward is for the workers' movement in South Africa. The paper is aimed at influencing the thinking of comrades in the social movements such in the SECC, APF, Jubilee, LPM etc. It is also aimed at comrades in the trade unions and in NGOs such as Khanya College and FXI and others. Basically it is saying that the left in South Africa must stop looking at COSATU as important and crucial in building a broader and more powerful workers movement because COSATU is reactionary; rather the left must look at the spontaneous community uprisings in the country. More importantly the paper says the leadership of the "old left"is misleading the working class and that in the social movements, as much as in the left generally, leadership must now be taken over by the "new left". This new left is what Oupa represents and his paper elaborates the position of this left. What Comrade Oupa seems to be doing is to draw a line inside the left and in the social movements between the "old" and "new" left. He is more or less declaring war on the old left ideologically and politically. His paper is the political _expression of the new left's attack on the old. The attack on SG, on the SECC, on the APF organizer and administrator, all these are, in my opinion, aspects of this attack of the old left by the new. The new left claims to be more left than the old left and in fact Oupa's argument is that the old left is actually reactionary or right-wing.

=Main problems with Oupa's paper= There is a something wrong in many sentences and pages of Comrade Oupa's paper. In what follows a few major points of disagreement with Oupa are covered for the purpose of discussion and debate.

These views are those of the Socialist Group. There is a plan to write something more systematic in the near future but hopefully this will do for now:

· Oupa's analysis of the class struggle in South Africa is not correct e.g. he does not think there the recent strikes by SAA, SAMWU, NUM and other workers constitutes a "strike wave". But there is clear evidence that the strikes influenced other workers to go on strike thus making a wave. He also dismisses the importance of these strikes because he claims they were "procedural" meaning they were legal and followed the Labour Relations Act. He thinks wild cat strikes are more revolutionary. Of course, in some circumstances, they can be more militant. In others, they may not be. But he misses this reality in order to make his point. The SG is wondering what was procedural about SAMWU members trashing cities and sabotaging services or the disruption caused by striking SAA workers. Or the many workers in essential services who broke the law to join the action. What Oupa fails to understand is that workers on strike can be driven to fight against procedures while the leadership are the ones who will invoke procedure.

· A close reading of his paper shows us that actually Oupa's perspective is not consistently pro-working class e.g. he blames COSATU rank and file members for the class collaborationist policies of the COSATU leadership. He thus cannot separate the politics of the leadership of working class mass organizations from that of the rank and file. This failure always leads to blaming the workers instead of organizing with the workers against the class collaborationist politics of their leadership. To further justify his argument in support of sidestepping the job of confronting theunion leadership Oupa claims that COSATU members are part of the problem because they have become a "labour aristocracy". It is very difficult to imagine a worker at Pikitup, paid R1 200 - R2 000 a month with few benefits, being an aristocrat, politically, socially or economically.

· His Marxism is questionable e.g. he is opposed to what he calls an emphasis by Marxists on the "point of production" (workplace) because he thinks this makes the left look too much to organized labour. By so saying he is ignoring the basic strength of workers, namely, that they produce the wealth and that's why they can go on strike and stop production. Of course, many workers are not even organized. That is a problem, not a solution. Under capitalism this is a very important source of strength. Oupa disagrees with this fact which has been the foundation of the workers' struggle for socialism for more than a century.

· Oupa has written a 33-page letter on COSATU but he chooses not to mention GIWUSA. This is the union which workers joined after a split from CEPPWAW, a COSATU affiliate, involving some lefts close to Oupa. The question is: does Oupa and his comrades actually believe that COSATU is the enemy? If so then does it mean we must work to weaken and defeat COSATU? Is that what Oupa is saying? Workers need unity at the workplace - that is what a union is and any division amongst unions is undermining that unity. Of course there will be political differences inside any union because there is a contest for political ideas amongst the working class and not all workers have the same politics. But is Oupa saying workers do not need that unity? Is he saying unity must be found without COSATU?

· For Oupa the politics of class collaboration of the COSATU leadership appears to be a discovery. In reality class collaboration is not new in COSATU. It was there during the politics of ungovernability when the COSATU and union leaders could not even connect the NUM and NUMSA strikes of 1987; it was there when the COSATU leadership took the initial RDP and removed demands including a moratorium on retrenchment; when COSATU collaborated in the COSATU/NACTU/SACCOLA Accord, when COSATU leadership supported the new Labour Relations Act, accepted variation downwards in the new Basic Condition of Employment Act, etc etc. Nor is class collaboration politics limited to COSATU - it dominates the SACP which is powerful in COSATU leadership positions.

· The action of a riot is an expression of working class anger but it is not always revolutionary. Just as the strike raises many political issues and challenges so does a spontaneous community uprising. In opposing the spontaneous community uprising - the "riot" - against the strike Oupa fails to see the strength in the apparent weaknesses of the recent strikes and fails altogether to see the weaknesses in the drama of the community uprising. The leadership associated with some of the uprisings has been shown to be opportunistic and individualistic and their politics can be narrow and not always pro-working class. Some ANC leaders have opportunistically exploited some riots. If your politics tells you, like ours, to orientate to ordinary working class people, then you see and celebrate the strength, but also critically examine the politics in militant action.

· Oupa speaks for a faction or group inside the South African left and some of the social movements. His arguments are designed to justify and promote the political views of this faction whatever its internal contradictions. Unfortunately unlike Keep Left, the SG and other political groups, Oupa's group denies that it actually is a group. The SG believes that the correct thing is for each group and faction to declare itself and to openly espouse its views. That way each group can give as much as it receives, it can criticize and be criticized. It is not good politics to use organizational processes to express and take forward political differences and contestations as appears to be happening in the APF today. Let the politics of each group and faction be put on the table and we have a contest of politics versus politics, not organizational accusations camouflaging actual political differences between groups.

· Oupa bungles together the "old left" into one camp despite some important differences and distinctions in the politics and practice of the people and organisations he attributes to this camp. For Oupa AIDC, Keep Left, Ashwin Desai and SG politics are all the same as far as their position on COSATU is concerned. This is not true. We of the SG want to explain our orientation to COSATU: as Marxists we orient to the working class, some members of the working class are employed, and some of these employed workers are members of trade unions, and COSATU happens to be the biggest trade union federation in South Africa. We insist that ordinary working lass people who are employed must be organized at that point - this is what a union is. And we insist that maximum unity must be promoted amongst ordinary working class people. We separate between the leaders and the rank and file and as SG we always look to the rank and file, to ordinary workers. We don't just connect to militants but also to the rank and file. When we connect with the militants, we connect also about the politics and method which will take them to mobilize and organize amongst the rank and file. That is how we end up orienting to COSATU - we orient to its rank and file not to its leadership.

· The political method preferred by Comrade Oupa and the comrades around him seems to be that of watching out for incidents of and places where there is mass action and then to move in and recruit the most active elements to a workshop at Khanya College. The idea is that mobilization plus a Khanya political education course makes one to be a 100% revolutionary activist. We of SG say there is nothing wrong with that but we would emphasise the need to turn those militants back to the masses so that they can do political work also in those areas where there is no immediate action and where the working class seems to be quiet. Some Khanya College graduates (trained militants) can easily turn against their fellow workers, their own organizations and even split their organizations after receiving political education at Khanya. We must not forget that the best political education for workers will more likely come from a worker participating in a strike rather than from a Khanya College workshop.

SG views on some of the issues raised in Oupa's paper
=On the strikes= There was a strike wave, some workers went on strike influenced by previous recent strikes. The strike by its nature is important because it raises the question of power and of who produces and who controls the production process. These strikes were important and should be seen as linked to the 2004 one-day public sector strike which was reputed to be the biggest in South African history. The following brief points can be made about the strikes:

· they happened after years of little strike activity · they broke through the one-day strike barrier · they were disruptive · the workers were fighting to win and not just to get the bosses to negotiate · the politics of the union leadership neither confronted the LRA and the chains of proceduralism and legalism, nor clearly identified some of the strikes strikes as against the ANC government · the union leadership failed to connect them to each other

The last bullet point is interesting because Oupa condemns COSATU for building and supporting "procedural" strikes. We accuse COSATU leaders of NOT building, supporting and connecting these procedural strikes. It should be noted that many young workers were involved in strike action for the first time in their lives and that many people watching saw for the first time the power of organized labour to disrupt the plans of the bosses.

=On workers and COSATU= Oupa condemns workers for being loyal to COSATU but we think that the loyalty to COSATU is not as great as Oupa claims e.g. when COSATU calls for a May Day rally workers are not attending in their thousands. Workers are no longer just doing what COSATU tells them to do. When workers look to COSATU and seem willing to obey its calls for action it is because they are looking a power and strength that can take their struggle forward rather than because of blind loyalty. They are looking to COSATU for cover for themselves. What is dismissed as their loyalty often comes if and when they see COSATU doing something which makes sense in struggle. So for example, thousands of ordinary working class people have been to COSATU meetings in their struggle against pre-paid meters, not because they obey COSATU leaders. Of course the best thing is when workers realize that they are their own cover. We don't celebrate the fact that workers' loyalty to COSATU has been destroyed because of years of betrayal and class collaborationist politics. Because it means that working class strength through organization and mobilization at the workplace has also been weakened. We also insist that class collaboration is an old, not a new problem. But we can see an advantage in that this loss of loyalty means workers are no longer just doing what COSATU leaders tell them to.

=On unions versus social movements= It is wrong to oppose or counterpose the strike to the community uprising. It is also wrong to counterpose the community struggle to the strike as Oupa does. Workers are employees at the workplace and community members at their workplace. The APF, for example, was specifically formed to build unity between employed and unemployed workers, between struggles in the community and at the workplace. In "correcting" a political mistake he perceives Oupa bends the stick too much the other way. He is arguing for abandoning organized labour to its class collaborationist leadership while all our energies should focus on community struggles. This is undialectical and fails to understand the nature of a workers' movement. A workers' movement consist of all or most sections of the working class. In strikes it has been easier to turn employed workers towards community struggles for example against prepaid meters and evictions. The duty of the left in social movements is to encourage different parts of the workers movement to stand with each other against the common enemy - the bosses and the bosses government.

=On collectivism and individualism among the left= We believe that as socialists we have to work collectively to support each other and help each other conduct disciplined and effective work building the workers' struggle and the workers' movement. This means we don't think working individually is the strongest way of building. We also believe that as a political organization we need to co-operate with other left forces in the struggle. This means working in a comradely fashion with other groups in working class mass movements and support organizations. The SG does not hide its existence from anyone and has affiliated to the APF with the aim of building and influencing the politics. We believe that people can and should form groups, factions, caucuses and platforms in working class mass organizations but we think this is best done openly and honestly. Political conditions allow this in South Africa. We are worried about the tendency to hide organized groups and factions while the same hidden groups speak as individuals and attack other groups such as ours who are open about their existence and accuse them of hidden political agendas. The SG has no hidden agenda, it is fighting for the overthrowal of the capitalist system and deploys its comrades to work in the social movements and trade unions to build the struggle of the workers to achieve this.

=On autonomism= The autonomist tendency is not a class approach thus cannot be a consistent working class approach. The SG believes that only a working class politics has any hope of shaking and ultimately overthrowing the power of the bosses. Militancy on its own cannot answer questions of class struggle. Class politics tells us that the capitalist state is a force organized by the bosses to suppress the working class and maintain the law and order of profits. The bosses' class uses the state to deal with any serious opposition to its rule. The view that state power is not important for the working class amounts to tying the hands of workers behind their backs by disempowering workers with unrealistic ideas. The autonomists wrongly argue that we can have mass organisations without structures and leaders. This robs rank and file workers of the tools by which they can control their own struggle by controlling their organizations and their leaders. . All human organizations develop a leadership and such a leadership should be openly and regularly elected. An ordinary member needs to be able to participate in a local structure and such a structure should be connected with other structures in the organization so that a voice in one place can be heard in other places.

=On building a movement towards a mass workers party= At exactly the moment when communities and workplaces are rising up in struggle it is sad to see some social movements turning inward and spending most of their time looking dealing with internal matters and leadership power struggles. The moment for turning out to the millions and millions is now. The SG believes the way forward is to connect to the existing struggles, build them, promote socialist politics and raise the call for building a movement towards a mass workers party. Such a party will be a party of millions and millions of workers based on existing struggles and fighting to take state power from the bosses. The aim is to get rid of capitalism and to replace it with socialism - a system where production is not for profit but to satisfy human needs. _________________________________________ DEBATE mailing list DEBATE@lists.kabissa.org http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/debate