2005-11-28,+SACP+at+the+crossroads,+ka+Nkosi,+Sunday+Times

Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 27 November 2005

= SA Communist Party at the crossroads = Divided over the Jacob Zuma affair and at loggerheads with the ANC, the comrades meet to seek a way forward


 * SECHABA KA’NKOSI**

IN JULY 1998, then President Nelson Mandela politely asked to address the 10th national congress of the South African Communist Party beyond his official keynote address.

Mandela explained that what he had said was a speech prepared for him by what he called his masters. He now wanted to talk to the meeting from the bottom of his heart.

Having indulged themselves in chants against the government’s growth, employment and redistribution (Gear) strategy, the 500 delegates packed into the Nasrec hall dutifully obliged.

They waited for the ANC president to provide answers to their dissatisfaction and even sang about how they wished to turn Mandela into a communist.

But when Mandela took the podium, the mood suddenly changed from jovial to finger-wagging. Mandela castigated the SACP for ridiculing government programmes and told the party openly to toe the ANC line or get out of the tripartite alliance.

The tense situation was left to the amiable SACP deputy general secretary, Jeremy Cronin, to rescue.

In measured tones, Cronin argued for the independence of the SACP and contended that the congress did not see the criticism as an attack on it, but rather as a sign of the seriousness with which the ANC took the SACP.

This weekend the SACP conducted an extraordinary introspection about its relevance at an augmented central committee meeting in Johannesburg. It discussed the political and economic climate and took stock of the party’s political programmes.

It is Cronin who could mastermind yet another rescue plan for the party.

In a paper titled The People Shall Govern — Class Struggles and the post-1994 State in South Africa, Cronin questions the need for the antagonistic relationship with the ANC and suggests a new way of engaging the ANC on matters of difference.

The paper is one of the key documents expected to be discussed at the meeting. Cronin argues that the ANC needs to be wrestled towards becoming an organisation capable of leading popular struggles on the ground. “This is just not a matter of head-office redesign but also of ensuring that gatekeeping, narrow careerism and plain corruption are eliminated from the branch level up,” he contends.

“To achieve this, there must be an offensive against the problematic axis between ANC elected representatives and state managers on the one hand and emerging capital on the other.”

Cronin’s take is, however, short of commentary on the party’s role in the past 10 years and the options it has for the future. One of the biggest omissions is the brain drain that the party suffered as a result of the new democracy.

The assassination of its charismatic general secretary, Chris Hani, in 1993, was the first serious casualty during the party’s fledgling revival in post-apartheid South Africa.

But Joe Slovo’s death two years later was even worse, robbing the party of one of its best minds.

With Hani and Slovo’s departure, the party was left rudderless under the chairmanship of ailing former Rivonia Treason triallist Raymond Mhlaba and the ineffective Charles Nqakula as general secretary.

The newly formed ANC government deepened the crisis by roping in the best minds of the SACP.

Slovo served as housing minister in Mandela’s Cabinet, leaving him little time to spend on the SACP.

Jeff Radebe took over public works, Alec Erwin went to finance and later to trade and industry, Sydney Mufamadi assumed safety and security — a position later inherited by the current chairman, Nqakula, in 1999 as Mufamadi moved on to local government. Long-standing member Ronnie Kasrils became deputy defence minister.

It is the clash between these leaders and their comrades at the party’s Cosatu House headquarters that has limited the party’s ability to articulate a coherent vision.

While their comrades decried the closure of the ministry responsible for the Reconstruction and Development Programme, realities in Parliament forced the ministers and MPs to go along with the decision.

When the government launched Gear months later, SACP activists took to the streets in protest but those in government privately voiced disapproval.

The marathon 2002 congress therefore ended up electing a new leadership to rebuild the party.

The congress elected Nqakula as compromise chairman to avoid a direct confrontation with Mbeki, and called in firebrand Blade Nzimande from the National Assembly to become general secretary.

Out went Cabinet ministers Jeff Radebe, Essop Pahad and Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi.

In came Young Turks — formidable leaders such as MP Langa Zitha, Chris Matlhako, Young Communist League deputy national secretary Mazibuko Jara and union boss Fikile Majola.

The party seemed to be regaining its influence, appealing to its working-class constituency by championing bread-and-butter issues and leading successful campaigns against banks and credit bureaus and demanding more access to agricultural land.

The party has also asked tough questions about high food prices and demanded the expansion of the school feeding scheme and the social security net.

Such campaigns catapulted the party to the centre of mass movements.

Cronin almost points to the ANC leadership under Mbeki and the rise of the black middle class as being responsible for current problems, and argues that the party’s new strategy means disrupting the relationship between the political and capitalist class.

“The left needs to reconnect with those located in the commanding heights of the state apparatus,” says Cronin, “less through an endlessly repeated (and invariably disappointing) deployment strategy (“getting our guy into the job”) and more through a principled and programmatic engagement”.

But the party’s divisions on the Zuma issue point to a serious crisis of leadership as some leaders openly support Zuma, while others raise disquiet.

The Young Turks are now questioning this miscalculation. Jara says the party has painted itself into a corner with ill-timed campaigns and mobilisation around such irrelevant issues.

Jara argues in another paper — What Colour is Our Flag? Red or JZ? — A Critique of the SACP Approach on the JZ Matter — that the SACP’s weaknesses are characterised by three main features: its role in the Zuma affair, the conceptualisation of its campaigns and the party’s effective absence from class struggles.

Jara says that although he agrees with a new mass-based strategy, the party’s blind support for Zuma has left it open to criticism.

“If needs be,” argues Jara, “we must be prepared to publicly, yet strategically, retreat and reorient our strategy on the JZ matter and related intra-alliance discussions and processes.

“In this context, the communist party must pay serious attention and give practical content to its own socialist moral renewal through actively, consistently and strategically attacking the cult of personality, centralisation of power, the intolerance of difference, corruption, the ever-growing social distance between the leaders and the people, and anti-poor policies.”

From: http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/articles/article.aspx?ID=ST6A154748