SACP+shifts+to+anarchism,+Rubben+Mohlaloga,+City+Press

City Press, Johannesburg, 01/07/2006 16:38 - (SA)
=SACP shifts to anarchism=


 * RUBBEN MOHLALOGA**

THE document by the South African Communist Party (SACP) on the "class struggle and the post 1994 state in South Africa" gives a sense of the political and ideological disposition of the SACP in the current period and how it sees its role in relation to the ANC.

In its view, the document states "the 1994 conjuncture represents a serious strategic setback for the working class (and the national democratic revolution)" because this "conjuncture did not present possibilities for a rapid advance to a full-blooded socialism".

Yet we are not told what the socialism is that the party seeks to create, except that the enemies of this socialist project are a "strong presidential centre, new political elite and a new generation of private sector BEE managers/capitalists".

Firstly I think it is important to invoke visionary articulation by Lenin in //Two Tactics of Social Democracy// where he says "Democratic changes in the political regime and the social and economic changes which are necessary do not imply the undermining of capitalist or bourgeois domination but on the contrary they will for the first time properly clear the ground for a wider and rapid capitalist development". He further contends that even "the redistribution of land to the peasants according to their needs will give impetus to capitalist development and will hasten the disintegration of the peasantry itself".

He further cautions that "it will be absurd to revert to old-fashioned Narodinick theory that the bourgeois revolution runs counter to the interests of the proletariat or to anarchism".

For me this is quite relevant for our debate except to qualify that ours is not a bourgeoisie revolution. It is a revolution pursued by an alliance of classes at the head of which is the working class with the sole objective to create a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous society.

Even in this era of the National Democratic Revolution it is important for various class forces and racial groups to remain faithful to this objective.

But if you are an utopian anarchist you would not heed the advice by Lenin, you will seek to see "a rapid advance to a full-blooded socialism".

You will not recognise that SA in the course of its capitalist development, will create capitalists. Failure to recognise this fact by a communist party will amount to absurdity. However the problem is that the SACP has degenerated into a faction of leftwing anarchists whose agenda converges with rightwing ideological postulates.

Bakunin could not have been more correct in his 1865 manifesto that "to be an anarchist one must first be a socialist" and Adolph Fischer in 1886, who argued that "every anarchist is a socialist, but every socialist is not necessarily an anarchist".

These anarchists, like their rightwing counterparts, see a capitalist everywhere the apartheid regime saw a terrorist. When they see a black woman driving a "German luxury car, staying at a country club or golf-estate" they see a capitalist to be condemned and smashed! Because the only way she could have made it is through "parasitism and compradorism".

This is the tragedy that has befallen the ideological outlook of the SACP, that black people can only be successful through dubious and parasitic means. The party ignores the fact that the removal of the apartheid laws as well as enabling legislations to create a non-sexist and non-racial society removed barriers for participation of black people in that capitalist economy.

Whether the ANC promoted it or not is neither here nor there, capitalism creates capitalists! But the SACP is not happy with this development. Consistent with its factional objectives the document says "in the run up to the ANC 2007 Conference, we need to flag the question of class representativity in the leading organs of the ANC. There is currently not a single serving trade unionist in the NEC for instance."

The truth that is not being told is that the absence of a serving trade unionist is accounted for by the fact that Cosatu took a decision that they did not want to serve in the NEC of the ANC.


 * //Mohlaloga is an ANC member of Parliament. He writes in his personal capacity.//**


 * From: http://www.news24.com/City_Press/Columnists/0,,186-1695_1961232,00.html**

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