15th CONGRESS OF
THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY
by Ian Beddowes
Ian Beddowes is National Political Commissar of the Zimbabwe Communist Party. He is based in South Africa and attended the SACP Congress as a Resource Person.
The 15th Congress of the South African Communist Party (SACP) was held at a time of very difficult conditions in South Africa. The African National Congress (ANC) government is still pursuing a neoliberal economic programme (despite the presence of SACP ministers) but while maintaining strong economic links with the West, it is simultaneously a member of BRICS.
South Africa has a principled policy on the proxy war being waged by the USA and NATO against Russia. President Ramaphosa has eloquently placed the blame for that war with NATO. South Africa has also been a supporter of the struggle of the people of Palestine for self-determination and against aggression by the racist settler state of Israel. The term ‘Israeli Apartheid’ was coined in South Africa. More recently, South Africa blocked a move to give Israel observer status at the African Union.
The West, led by the USA, clearly wishes to see the removal of the ANC government at the 2024 General Election.The SACP played the leading role during the liberation struggle against apartheid, guiding the ANC as it was instructed to do by the Comintern in 1928. Today, people like Moses Kotane, J.B. Marks, Yusuf Dadoo, Joe Slovo and Chris Hani are revered outside of the immediate ranks of the Communist Party.
Around 80% of the funding for the ANC and its armed wing uMkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), came from the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1987. A major turning point was the victory at the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988 in which the apartheid South African Army was defeated by the combined forces of Cuba and Angola. In that same year, future President Thabo Mbeki met leaders of South African big capital in Lusaka, Zambia.
In South Africa itself, the townships had become ungovernable and apartheid was no longer profitable. So long as the ANC agreed not to nationalise industry, big capital agreed to support the release of the ANC leadership and unban the ANC, the rival PAC and even the SACP.
Following negotiations, it was agreed that Cuban troops should leave Angola and South Africa troops should leave Namibia. In 1990, Namibia became independent and Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders were released. In 1994, Mandela became President; throughout South Africa, this old man was viewed as an interim leader.
The real leader of government, however, was Thabo Mbeki who became President in 1999.
By 1994 there was no Soviet Union, socialism had been discredited and the neoliberal agenda dominated most of the world.When the SACP was legalised in 1990 it had approximately only 650 members but had, in reality, led the struggle. Soon after unbanning, and led by its charismatic young General Secretary, Chris Hani, the SACP decided to open the doors of the Party to all. In fact Hani was also a member of the ANC and it was obvious to all that he was so popular that he would be chosen as the next President after Mandela rather than the pro-capitalist Mbeki.
Chris Hani was assassinated outside his house in April 1993.
In 1996, South Africa adopted the GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution) programme. Instead of nationalisation and national planning, there was ‘Black Economic Empowerment’. Aspiring black capitalists were given tenders in white-owned companies and state-owned enterprises.
The SACP characterised this move to create a black capitalist stratum as the ‘Class Project’ and those who lived off tenders as ‘tendrepreneurs’.
The process of tenderisation created numerous sub-contractors and the consequent casualisation of labour and undermining of the trade union movement.Dissatisfaction with Mbeki within the movement led to his removal in 2008 and in 2009 the populist Jacob Zuma became President. His first term of office went reasonably well, but early in his second term which started in 2014, it became clear that not only had he overseen the granting of tenders to completely incompetent people of a lumpen character, he had allowed the Guptas, a previously unknown Indian family to control many state resources and have a major role in the selection of government ministers. Looting reached alarming levels and corruption became endemic throughout South Africa.
Mainly through the efforts of the SACP, Zuma was forced to establish the Zondo Commission on corruption and state capture.
Rampant corruption within the ANC has been exposed, Zuma has been replaced by Ramaphosa who represents better managed capitalism, but with unemployment currently at 34% the ANC has lost much of its attraction. The job competition from foreign immigrants, especially Zimbabweans — themselves running away from economic collapse — has created an atmosphere of xenophobic hatred. With the violent Dudula movement seeking out foreigners in the streets and the proto-fascist ActionSA party formed by former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba gaining a considerable part of the black vote, we are witnessing the birth of fascism in South Africa.
At the recent municipal elections, most major cities fell to a coalition of the Democratic Alliance (mainly supported by whites, coloureds and Indians), ActionSA and the populist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by the unpredictable Julius Malema, a ‘champion of the poor’ with an extravagant lifestyle.
The decision to turn the SACP into a mass party, prompted by the conditions of the early 1990s has not been beneficial. The decision by the SACP to allow General Secretary Blade Nzimande to become a Minister in the bourgeois ANC government only led to the SACP being seen as an appendage of the ANC rather than as the vanguard party — although many of the criticisms of Blade Nzimande have clearly been unjust. Still, it is obvious that a very large proportion of the 300,000+ membership of the SACP is not politically educated and that authority of the Party is now less than it was in 1990 when it had only 650 members.
At the 15th Congress, many delegates felt that the SACP should stand at elections independently of the ANC, but the leadership wisely, in the opinion of this writer, opposed that; the consequences of having a pro-western government in South Africa are far too dangerous.
The election of the popular, hard-working and outspoken Solly Mapaila as General Secretary promises to usher in a new era for the SACP, but one which cannot be achieved without extensive organisational renewal. The retention of Blade Nzimande as Chairperson confirms the tradition of unity and continuity which has long been a key feature of the SACP.
