Forward to Socialism!! - South African Communist Party

14 Umsebenzi
PERSPECTIVE 2:
JUSTICE MALEMA
“We do not need
permission from
white messiahs”
The opinion article by Cde Jeremy
Cronin, a renowned analyst and
poet is openly reactionary, clothed in
quasi-Marxist rhetoric, with potential
to make a sorry and sad reflection of
the true character of the South African
Communist Party’s ideological steadfastness.
What is worrying though is that
Cde Cronin’s anti development and
counter progress sentiments are projected
as views of South African Communist
Party.
It is highly unlikely that Cde Cronin
represents the views and true character
of the Communist Party because the
Communist Party we know is one that
was able to mould Nelson Mandela from
an anti-communist radical into a true
revolutionary who did not only embrace
the Freedom Charter, but was willing to
take up arms to defend it.
Communist Party activists played an
important role in the ideological, political
and organisational configuration of the
ANC Youth League in the early 1940s and
early 1950s, despite the hostility they encountered
from the Youth Leaguers, particularly
Nelson Mandela. When Nelson
Mandela rebuked the Communist Party
and physically disrupted its meetings, it
was the longest serving General Secretary
of the Communist Party, Moses Kotane
who paid particular attention to the
ready to fight anti-communist militant
(Mandela) and transformed him into
fighting nationalist revolutionary against
the white bourgeoisie and the British imperialists.
William Nkomo, Walter Sisulu, Oliver
Tambo, Joe Matthews and many of our
predecessors in the Youth League matured
within the revolutionary national
liberation movement to accept the ideological
guidance from the Communist
Party. Practical joint programmes of what
is now understood to be the alliance between
the ANC and the Communist
Party were pioneered by the founding
generation of the ANCYL amidst condemnation
by the Senior and older leadership
of the ANC.
These realities about the Communist
Party and many others make us to
earnestly believe that Jeremy Cronin
could not be writing about the ANCYL’s
call for the Nationalisation of Mines in
the manner he did if he truly represents
the Communist Party. But because Jeremy
Cronin chose to write about the
Nationalisation of Mines in response to
the ANCYL, we are left with no choice
but to respond and expose the reactionary
undertones that characterise his
input.
It is very sad that Jeremy Cronin decided
to isolate me from the ANCYL 23rd
National Congress resolution that “the
State should be custodian of the people
in its ownership, extraction, production
and trade of mineral wealth beneath the
soil, monopoly industries and banks”. We
thought that it is only rightwing Newspapers
and their attendant analysts who
recurrently isolate me from the organisation,
and indeed amazed that Jeremy
Cronin has joined the band.
Socialisation v. nationalisation
Cde Jeremy Cronin takes issue with the
fact that the ANCYL has called for Nationalisation
of Mines, instead of socialisation.
He says “this is why the SACP
also prefers in general to refer to “socialisation”
rather than “nationalisation”.
This is quite odd because in the same
opinion article, Cde Cronin re-asserts the
Communist Party’s call for the Nationalisation
of Sasol.
The SACP 12th National Congress resolved
amongst other things, “to campaign
for and ensure the re-nationalisation
of companies in strategic sectors
such Sasol and Mittal Steel with an ultimate
aim of nationalising and socialising
the commanding heights of the economy
in line with the vision of the Freedom
Charter”. It appears from this resolution
and many others that contrary to what
Cde Jeremy says, the SOUTH AFRICAN
Communist Party has never preferred socialisation
as opposed to nationalisation,
and neither did it narrowly prefer nationalisation
as opposed to socialisation.
'The SACP did not
narrowly prefer
socialisation over
nationalisation'
In August 2009, the ANCYL released a
Nationalisation of Mines conceptual
framework on what our understanding of
Nationalisation is, so as to avoid the confusion
and misinterpretations that seem
to dominate Cronin’s input. In the conceptual
framework, we amongst other
things said, “Nationalisation is not a
panacea for South Africa’s developmental
challenges, but it should in the manner
we are proposing it, entail democratising
the commanding heights of the
economy, to ensure they are not just
legally owned by the state, but that they
are thoroughly democratised and controlled
by the people”.
What is vital and important in the immediate
is that Nationalisation of Mines
should happen and the question, methods
and approach of socialisation is directly
consequent of the decision to Nationalise.
Comrade Jeremy does not appreciate
such, he instead philosophises
the entire question so that he can reach
reactionary conclusions.
In the ANC, “transfer of mineral wealth
beneath the soil, monopoly industries
and banks to the ownership of the people
as a whole” was correctly understood as
nationalisation if the government that
nationalises can justly claim authority
and based on the will of the people.
In the aftermath of the ANC’s adoption
of the Freedom Charter, the leadership of
the ANC recurrently affirmed “transfer of
ownership to the people as a whole” as
amounting to a legitimate government’s
control and ownership of the commanding
heights of the economy. Various evidence
points to the fact that ownership
by the people as a whole was construed
to be meaning Nationalisation. Cde Jeremy
Cronin is the one speaking English,
not politics, and does not even provide a
conceptual foundation of what is meant
by socialisation.
Responding to a critique of the Freedom
Charter by a Jordan K. Ngubane,
who was against the economic clause of
the Freedom Charter, President Albert
Luthuli said in June 1956 that, “In modern
society, even amongst the so-called
capitalistic countries, nationalisation of
certain industries and commercial undertakings
has become an accepted and established
fact. Only the uninitiated and
ignorant would suggest that the Union of
South Africa is going to Moscow because
its Railways, Broadcasting and Post Office
services are nationalised”.
President Luthuli further illustrated
that nationalisation as called for in South
December 2009