Forward to Socialism!! - South African Communist Party

Umsebenzi 29
there were elements who collaborated
with the forces of the apartheid-capitalist
regime based on the fact that the African
national liberation struggle appeared to
be a contested site of the Cold War between
the and thet USSR.
The USA and her allies inherently did
not support the socialist orientation of
the African liberation struggles but supported
the neo-liberal orientation of such
struggles. At the height of racial oppression
and class exploitation, the liberation
movement had to deduce that without
advance towards socialism, a non-racial,
non-sexist and democratic society would
only remain a mere pipedream. When
looking at the main external allies of our
struggle in the late 1970’s, the Politico-
Military and Strategy Commission of the
ANC referred to them as: “the Socialist
world, those newly independent states,
who have already won the first stage of
their struggle against colonialism especially
those consolidating their political
independence by the demolition of the
vestiges of colonialism and total economic
reconstruction of their societies,
those states in the western world which
have given consistent political and material
support for our liberation movement,
the people still engaged in the struggle
against colonial rule, and the working
class and other democratic forces in the
imperialist countries.”(The Green Book,
ANC, August 1979).
Among other things, the Green Book
clearly presented a concrete analysis of
the situation and appeared to be a well
researched theoretical weapon towards
dislodging the enemy. It clearly outlined
the underlying character of the South
African politico-economic situation: “The
principal enemy of our revolution is the
South African ruling class, which is distinguished
by a combination of several
key characteristics. Like its counterparts
in other capitalist countries, its power is
rooted, in the first instance, in its ownership
and control of the basic means of
production. But in South Africa, the system
of economic exploitation is reinforced
and deepened by the national oppression
of the black majority. Thus, capitalist exploitation
and racial oppression operate
together and reinforce one another. This
combination of class exploitation and
colour oppression imposes a double burden
on the black majority, who are exploited
as working people and also as
members of the nationally oppressed
groups.”
The relationship between the Green
Book analysis and our current economic
conjecture bears testimony to the fact
that without demolishing capitalism, our
cause towards building a non-racial society
shall remain utopian.
Arguably, the neo-liberal economic
compromises which were clandestinely
fine-tuned by some of the leading cadres
in the ANC in the mid 1980’s were a
founding representation of what has been
dubbed as the 1996 Class Project by the
SACP. These compromises took centre
stage in shaping the ideological direction
of the ANC since the early 1990’s. Without
undermining the political advances of
this period as it brought about change in
the political landscape (the 1994 breakthrough)
of our country, the paramount
truth of ideological delinquency – if not
ideological capitulation – that engulfed
The clandestine
neo-liberal economic
compromises of the
1980s were the foundations
of the 1996 Class Project
some of the leading cadres in the movement
is inescapable. The demobilisation
of the masses within the ANC and formation
of business alliances between
some of the senior leaders of the ANC
was one practical reflection of this elementary
capitulation. The formation of
our democratic nation state in 1994 came
at a time when world capitalism was at
its peak. Neo-liberal economic policies
were the order of the day. As a result, the
Reconstruction and Development Program
(RDP) was reduced to a pink cherry
on top of what was the real cake – the
Growth, Employment and Redistribution
Policy (Gear) adopted by government in
1996. The International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank had already re-admitted
South Africa in 1990 after more
than thirty years of exclusion. This readmission
was nothing except being an enabling
motive behind the economic subordination
of our Government of National
Unity to economic surveillance by
the IMF and the World Bank. The imposition
of Gear in 1996 against the RDP
had to qualify what the SACP had
dubbed as the 1996 class project because
Gear represented the views of the neoliberal
economic agenda as it relates to
the requirements of the IMF and the
World Bank.
The fact that Gear was not an alliance
economic programme and was not discussed
even within the constitutional
structures of the ANC, bears testimony to
the reality that some elements within the
leadership of the ANC had already begun
to be absorbed by the IMF’s neo-liberal
economic agenda. In his recent book, Cde
Ben Turok writes “Even after 1994, the relationship
between the ANC and the government
with IMF and the World Bank
have largely been conducted behind
closed doors. They have never been reported
to the ANC’s national conference,
and agreements have not been reported
to parliament as required by the constitution…Mbeki
admitted to Gevisser that
five months before coming to power, the
ANC had “signed a letter of intent to the
IMF committing itself as the future government
to a programme of fiscal austerity
in return for a loan of $850 million”.
He also said that he and the government
had been forced to acquiesce to the
Washington Consensus on micro-economic
policy when they implemented
their Gear policy.
Cde Mdlalose is a of the YCLSA PWC in
KZN
December 2009