The Big Read: Quo vadis, comrades in the SACP?

16 July 2015 - 02:02 By S'Thembiso Msomi

Rusty Bernstein must have thought it would be easy to convince communist veterans Jack Simons and his wife, Ray Alexander, to take up membership of the South African Communist Party. But, while Alexander did not hesitate in signing up, Simons refused. According to Bernstein, Simons saw no need for an independent communist party as all its political purposes "could be fully achieved" at the time through the ANC and the then burgeoning trade union movement.That was some 62 years ago, after the reconstitution of the SACP as an underground party following the banning of its predecessor, the Communist Party of SA, in 1950.Simons eventually joined the party in exile about 20 years later, but the question he posed to Bernstein about the role of the SACP is still pertinent today.A similar question, I am told, arose in Havana, Cuba, in 1989 at the last congress of the SACP as an illegal and exiled party. There was much debate about what the role of the Communist Party would be under legal conditions.Delegates were apparently split into two schools of thought. There were those who believed that the party should just dissolve and its members operate under the banner of the ANC, trade unions and other mass formations that were part of the liberation struggle. The opposing school believed in the continued existence of the party and argued that, once unbanned, it would have a public identity of its own.The latter school won the debate and throughout much of the 1940s to early-1990s, the Communist Party was hugely influential within the ANC. Its access to the Soviet Union and other members of the communist bloc meant it could help the liberation movement secure resources at a time when Western powers worked closely with the apartheid regime.As Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa reminded delegates to the SACP special national congress in Soweto last week, the party also played "a critical role in the ideological development" of the ANC, both before and during the bannings period. This it did without ever having more than 500 members before its banning in 1950, and 3 000 when in exile.But in the post-apartheid era, especially under Blade Nzimande, general secretary since 1998, the party has increasingly taken a different role, one that often put it on a collision course with sections of the ANC.Former finance minister Trevor Manuel's public outburst about Nzimande and the SACP on Sunday was an expression of a long-held frustration with an ANC partner that seems to have no qualms about playing the roles of insider and outsider at the same time. Since 1994, many prominent SACP members have served in the cabinet but the party was still allowed to criticise government decisions.Its influence and power have definitely increased under President Jacob Zuma, with more than a handful of its senior leadership appointed as ministers and many more are MPs, premiers, MECs and mayors.Its membership has also grown, to more than 225000 members.But the rise in membership and influence has been accompanied by the rapid decline in the party's hegemony in the labour movement and the left-wing academic and intellectual sector. In the past many an intellectual who subscribed to Marxism was a member or sympathetic to the SACP; today the majority are openly hostile to it.The continuing implosion of Cosatu can be blamed partly on the loss of the SACP's ideological grip over the federation's leadership.There was a time, especially in the run-up to Polokwane in 2007, when almost every Cosatu executive member belonged to the SACP. But disagreement over Nzimande and other leaders going into government, and the belief that the SACP leaders had become too embedded with "the capitalist" ANC, led the likes of Irvin Jim and Zwelinzima Vavi to abandon it.With Zuma's term in office approaching an end, the SACP is approaching another crossroads.Ramaphosa looks most likely to succeed Zuma. Given his status as one of the prominent faces of South African capitalism, you'd think communists would be dead opposed to his candidacy.Apparently not. They welcomed him enthusiastically to their congress last week.Party insiders say the real battle is for the ANC deputy presidency.Informally, SACP members say they want the current secretary-general of the ANC, Gwede Mantashe, in the post because he would grow the SACP's influence even after Zuma has left.There are fears that if the job goes to ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize, regarded as very business-friendly, the ruling party would become more conservative.But there is another perspective, one that seems to enjoy a lot of support from younger members - that the SACP should contest elections on its own.This group believes that, instead of obsessing over who is in charge of the ANC and how to influence them, the SACP should build its own electoral base and use it to bargain with the ANC on policy and deployment issues in a reconfigured alliance.That would certainly redefine the role of the SACP.But there is no appetite among the party's leaders for this option...

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