SACP (South-Africa) defends state property against struggle for housing

[bricolage]

I received this in an email but it is all over the internet if you want to search for it.
[Emphasis added by myself].


As Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape we have noted the statement by the South African Communist Party that declares that blockading public roads is "anarchy and reactionary."

If road blockades are anarchistic and reactionary then it is clear that anarchy and reaction are very popular in South Africa. Communities, organisations and movements across Cape Town and across South Africa have been blockading roads for years. We are not the only people that have blockaded roads in Cape Town in the last days. Many of the road blockades in Cape Town in recent days are not organised by us. But our campaign does endorse the road blockade as a legitimate tactic. We think it is quite significant that new communities are supporting our campaign all the time. We have already been invited to visit four new communities that want to join our campaign during this weekend. The rebellions that use road blockades as an important tactic are spreading everywhere. There is real popular support for disrupting business as usual in a system that oppresses the poor. When the SACP condemn us they condemn the struggles of the people across the country. That philosopher called Karl Marx once wrote that communism is the real movement that abolishes the state of things. He didn't write that communuism is the vanguard that disciplines and condemns the real struggles of the people.

We also note that:

When we have been evicted the SACP has been silent.

When we have have been arrested the SACP has been silent.

When we have suffered in fires and floods the SACP has been silent.

Yet when we take to the streets the SACP condemns us!

What kind of communism is this? What kind of solidarity is this?

To make matters worse everyone knows that the SACP supported the struggles in Khutsong which were much more militant in their tactics than the struggle that we are now waging in Cape Town. Clearly for the SACP the real problem that theyare having with Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape is not our tactics but the fact that we are organising outside of the ANC and that we refuse to vote for the ANC or for any political party. Local government elections are coming and the ANC is panicking about the fact that while there is tremendous popular anger and protest in Cape Town they have lost control of it. The popular anger and protest in Cape Town is under the control of ordinary people and no political party likes that.

The SACP say that they are on the side of the poor but we don't see them struggling with the organisations of the poor. We only see them trying to discipline our organisations from above and telling us to vote for the ANC!

Everybody knows that around the world Stalinist Communist parties always function to defend states against popular struggles. This was true in Budapest in 1956, in Paris in 1968 and its true right now in Culcutta. We are not anti-communist. We are for a living communism. We are for a communism that emerges from the struggles of ordinary people and which is shaped and owned by ordinary people. We are for a communism built from the ground up. We are for a communism in which land and wealth are shared and managed democratically. Any party or groupuscle or NGO that declares from above that it is the vanguard of the people's struggles and that the people must therefore accept their authority is the enemy of the people's struggles. Leadership is earned and is never permanent. It can never be declared from above. It only lasts for as long as communities of struggle decide to invest their hope in particular structures. Often there are many legitimate and democratic structures involved in the same broad movement of struggle at the same time. This is why we always insist that the autonomy of all democratic poor people's organisations must be respected and welcomed.

We are know that many ordinary members of the SACP live the same challenges as us and that we have a common interest in the same struggles. Like everyone in their right mind we support some of the positions that the SACP has taken in the battles within the ANC - like their position against the tenderpreneurs and before that their position against AIDS denialism. But we are critical of their hostility to freedom of expression. We are also aware that some people in the SACP, like Dominic Tweedie, have, in alliance with the most regressive faction of the middle class left, supported and propogandised for the repression against our movement. We have no choice but to condemn those members of the SACP that support the repression of autonomous struggles.

We are happy to meet with the SACP but our autonomy as an organistion is non-negotiable. That includes our autonomy to refuse to support the ANC in the comming elections.

We note that while they condemn our endorsement of the road blockade as a tactic they also say that they will support our march on parliament. We welcome their support on our march but they will need to understand that we do not allow political parties to take over our protests. We are very clear that we will be protesting and not voting when the local government elections come.

[Ravachol]

Now, I don't hold any illusions with regards to party-politics but I'm actually rather surprised at the tone and content of the SACP statement here (http://libcom.org/news/south-african-communist-party-attacks-abahlali-basemjondolos-use-road-blockade-anarchist-re):



The South African Communist Party (SACP), long considered one of the most Stalinist Communist Parties anywhere, has joined the liberal NGOs in their attempt to rally public opinion against a two week long wave of popular protest in Cape Town that has included numerous road blockades and some damage to state property. The SACP statement, and a reply from Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape, are both reproduced here.

The Statement from the South African Communist Party

Blockading Public Roads is anarchy and reactionary

As the SACP in the Brian Bunting District (Cape Metro), we are serious outraged about the attitude and protesting method used by Abahlali Basemjondolo in the area of Khayelitsha. If this is the modus operand they use in their struggles, their campaigns will always be characterised as opportunistic, anarchist and populist and that they are using genuine concerns of the workers and the poor of Khayelitsha.

As the SACP, the vanguard of the working class and the poor, ours amongst other things is to fight for decent houses, decent jobs, health, clean drinking water, free and quality education etc. And we must therefore campaign for what we do not have and defend what we already got.

Our struggle is also to defend state property such as public roads, libraries, schools, clinics, police station etc. In our view all these properties are meant to benefit the workers and the poor direct, and destroying them when you wage your struggle is total reactionary and anarchist.

Against this background, as the SACP we call on Abahlali Basemjondolo under the leadership of Mr. Poni to refrain from using these kinds of tactics when they wage in their struggles because amongst other things they are playing in the hands of the enemy. As the working class and the poor we should at all times direct our struggles to our oppressors and its administration and public roads are neither our oppressor nor our enemy.

As the SACP we shall always be in the forefront of fighting for service delivery and we will always condemn all those who are anarchist and reactionary and vandalise the already existing infrastructure in our communities. Lastly, the SACP's doors are open for engagements with any forces or organisation in society and we have leant that there is a service delivery march planned to Western Cape government and we shall support that march.

Statement issued by Benson ka-Ngqentsu, SACP Brian Bunting District Secretary, October 15 2010


How any organisation calling itself communist can defend the structure of the bourgeois state (especially in the form of police stations) is completely beyond me. The outcry at halting the circulation of Capital (which is what happens when public infrastructure is sabotaged) is utterly ridiculous, we might as well condemn strikes because they prevent workers from getting their commodities.:rolleyes:

[fionntan]

But sure not to far from were me and you live when Irish insurgents attack "police stations" the usuall rats come out of the wood work to condemm these attacks as the work of criminals. I hope you are as outraged with that as you are about South Africa. Ill not hold my breath but...

[Ravachol]

But sure not to far from were me and you live when Irish insurgents attack "police stations" the usuall rats come out of the wood work to condemm these attacks as the work of criminals. I hope you are as outraged with that as you are about South Africa. Ill not hold my breath but...

I can't imagine anyone crying over republicans attacking police stations. What's usually denounced is struggles of national liberation, but you'll find that I actually have a rather mixed position on that compared to most anarchists and left-communists and I have a softspot for socialist republicanism anyways.

But that was not the matter here, the matter here was the position of the SACP.

[Honggweilo]

It seems really wierd that there doesnt seem to be any source for that statement on any newsmedia. This kind of statement by the SACP sounds really contradictionary, especially since the outburst of the ANCYL/ANC against the SACP/SACYL for its offensive against corruption/bureaucracy/neo-liberalism and the oppertuinistic racial motivated rethoric by the ANCYL. In any case, i cant find a statement in the SACP press releases, and considering its reputation and position, its very unwise to proclaim something like this.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/ANCYL-slams-SACP-over-Malema-20100821


ANCYL slams SACP over Malema
2010-08-21 11:01


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Johannesburg - The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) on Saturday accused the SA Communist Party (SACP) of supporting opponents of it's president, Julius Malema.

ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu was responding to comments made by SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande which he said criticised "factionalist and divisive struggles within the ANCYL" and "tenderpreneurship".

"Nzimande’s observations confirm the reports the ANCYL recurrently received that some of the wayward and ill-disciplined elements in the ANC Youth League are handled by the SACP," said Shivambu in a statement.

Malema rival and ousted Limpopo ANCYL chairperson Lehlogonolo Masoga has waged a series of court actions after the league attempted to discipline and then expel him.

Masoga was accused of creating divisions within the ANCYL and impeding its work.

He dropped his court actions after interventions from the parent ANC.

"Now that the proverbial dogs have been hit so hard, the handlers are coming out in cry foul and present a picture that there is a factional problem in the ANC Youth League," said Shivambu.

"It appears that the honest organisational observation of the ANC and decisive intervention is not noticed by Dr. Nzimande, he only sees factional struggles, which are more of his imaginations than reality."

Shivambu accused "ill-disciplined members and ex-members" of misleading the ANC Youth league and of creating parallel party structures.

- SAPA

[Honggweilo]

also this


The South African Communist Party (SACP), long considered one of the most Stalinist Communist Parties anywhere

lol? i mean Chris Hani was a staunch MLíst, but the moderate Joe Slovo (big pusher of the "national democratic revolution first" line) had a whole tirade against Stalin (influenced by the gorbi hype)

http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/slovo/1989/socialism-failed.htm


The term ‘Stalinism’ is used to denote the bureaucratic-authoritarian style of leadership (of parties both in and out of power) which denuded the party and the practice of socialism of most of its democratic content and concentrated power in the hands of a tiny, self-perpetuating elite.

While the mould for Stalinism was cast under Stalin’s leadership it is not suggested that he bears sole responsibility for its negative practices. The essential content of Stalinism — socialism without democracy — was retained even after Stalin in the Soviet Union (until Gorbachev’s intervention), albeit without some of the terror, brutality and judicial distortions associated with Stalin himself.

Among a diminishing minority there is still a reluctance to look squarely in the mirror of history and to concede that the socialism it reflects has, on balance, been so distorted that an appeal to its positive achievements (and of course there have been many) sounds hollow and very much like special pleading. It is surely now obvious that if the socialist world stands in tatters at this historic moment it is due to the Stalinist distortions.

We should have little patience with the plea in mitigation that, in the circumstances, the Stalinist excesses (such as forced collectivisation) brought about some positive economic achievements. Statistics showing high growth rates during Stalin’s time prove only that methods of primitive accumulation can stimulate purely quantitative growth in the early stages of capitalism or socialism — but at what human cost? In any case, more and more evidence is emerging daily that, in the long run, the excesses inhibited the economic potential of socialism.

Another familiar plea in mitigation is that the mobilising effect of the Stalin cult helped save socialism from military defeat. It is, however, now becoming clear that the virtual destruction of the command personnel of the Red Army, the lack of effective preparation against Hitler’s onslaught and Stalin’s dictatorial and damaging interventions in the conduct of the war could have cost the Soviet Union its victory.

Vigilance is clearly needed against the pre-perestroika styles of work and thinking which infected virtually every party (including ours) and moulded its members for so many decades. It is not enough merely to engage in the self-pitying cry: ‘we were misled'; we should rather ask why so many communists allowed themselves to become so blinded for so long. And, more importantly, why they behaved like Stalinists towards those of their comrades who raised even the slightest doubt about the ‘purity’ of Stalin’s brand of socialism.

In the socialist world there are still outposts which unashamedly mourn the retreat from Stalinism and use its dogmas to ‘justify’ undemocratic and tyrannical practices. It is clearly a matter of time before popular revulsion leads to a transformation. In general, those who still defend the Stalinist model — even in a qualified way — are a dying breed; at the ideological level they will undoubtedly be left behind and they need not detain us here.

note: these are his own reflections, not the party's view, especially not after 1991.

[Honggweilo]

AbM reaction


Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Responds to the South African Communist Party

As Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape we have noted the statement by the South African Communist Party that declares that blockading public roads is "anarchy and reactionary."

If road blockades are anarchistic and reactionary then it is clear that anarchy and reaction are very popular in South Africa. Communities, organisations and movements across Cape Town and across South Africa have been blockading roads for years. We are not the only people that have blockaded roads in Cape Town in the last days. Many of the road blockades in Cape Town in recent days are not organised by us. But our campaign does endorse the road blockade as a legitimate tactic. We think it is quite significant that new communities are supporting our campaign all the time. We have already been invited to visit four new communities that want to join our campaign during this weekend. The rebellions that use road blockades as an important tactic are spreading everywhere. There is real popular support for disrupting business as usual in a system that oppresses the poor. When the SACP condemn us they condemn the struggles of the people across the country. That philosopher called Karl Marx once wrote that communism is the real movement that abolishes the state of things. He didn't write that communism is the vanguard that disciplines and condemns the real struggles of the people.

We also note that:

When we have been evicted the SACP has been silent.

When we have have been arrested the SACP has been silent.

When we have suffered in fires and floods the SACP has been silent.

Yet when we take to the streets the SACP condemns us!

What kind of communism is this? What kind of solidarity is this?

To make matters worse everyone knows that the SACP supported the struggles in Khutsong which were much more militant in their tactics than the struggle that we are now waging in Cape Town. Clearly for the SACP the real problem that theyare having with Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape is not our tactics but the fact that we are organising outside of the ANC and that we refuse to vote for the ANC or for any political party. Local government elections are coming and the ANC is panicking about the fact that while there is tremendous popular anger and protest in Cape Town they have lost control of it. The popular anger and protest in Cape Town is under the control of ordinary people and no political party likes that.

The SACP say that they are on the side of the poor but we don't see them struggling with the organisations of the poor. We only see them trying to discipline our organisations from above and telling us to vote for the ANC!

Everybody knows that around the world Stalinist Communist parties always function to defend states against popular struggles. This was true in Budapest in 1956, in Paris in 1968 and its true right now in Calcutta. We are not anti-communist. We are for a living communism. We are for a communism that emerges from the struggles of ordinary people and which is shaped and owned by ordinary people. We are for a communism built from the ground up. We are for a communism in which land and wealth are shared and managed democratically. Any party or groupuscle or NGO that declares from above that it is the vanguard of the people's struggles and that the people must therefore accept their authority is the enemy of the people's struggles. Leadership is earned and is never permanent. It can never be declared from above. It only lasts for as long as communities of struggle decide to invest their hope in particular structures. Often there are many legitimate and democratic structures involved in the same broad movement of struggle at the same time. This is why we always insist that the autonomy of all democratic poor people's organisations must be respected and welcomed.

We are know that many ordinary members of the SACP live the same challenges as us and that we have a common interest in the same struggles. Like everyone in their right mind we support some of the positions that the SACP has taken in the battles within the ANC - like their position against the tenderpreneurs and before that their position against AIDS denialism. But we are critical of their hostility to freedom of expression. We are also aware that some people in the SACP, like Dominic Tweedie, have, in alliance with the most regressive faction of the middle class left, supported and propogandised for the repression against our movement. We have no choice but to condemn those members of the SACP that support the repression of autonomous struggles.

We are happy to meet with the SACP but our autonomy as an organistion is non-negotiable. That includes our autonomy to refuse to support the ANC in the coming elections.

We note that while they condemn our endorsement of the road blockade as a tactic they also say that they will support our march on parliament. We welcome their support on our march but they will need to understand that we do not allow political parties to take over our protests. We are very clear that we will be protesting and not voting when the local government elections come.

they have a point here, and this move by the local branch of the SACP indeed reeks of political oppertuinism in this case. By the increased attacks on the SACP and the SACYL themselves, trying to maneuver itsself into radicalising the ANC's base, militant action in mass organisations, and yet try not to be expelled by the ANC leadership. Its a tight rope.

[bricolage]

I started a thread on this here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/abahlali-basemjondolo-responds-t143455/index.html?t=143455) and would say merge the threads but nothing got written in my one!

Anyway it is hardly surprising that the SACP would defend state property seeing as they have been an intrinsic part of the post-apartheid South African state.

[Honggweilo]

I started a thread on this here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/abahlali-basemjondolo-responds-t143455/index.html?t=143455) and would say merge the threads but nothing got written in my one!

done

[Ravachol]

AbM reaction



they have a point here, and this move by the local branch of the SACP indeed reeks of political oppertuinism in this case. By the increased attacks on the SACP and the SACYL themselves, trying to maneuver itsself into radicalising the ANC's base, militant action in mass organisations, and yet try not to be expelled by the ANC leadership. Its a tight rope.

That's true, it could be an opportunist move by a local branch. I can't find any official source for this statement either. But that might just be because it wasn't written in english and AbM translated it.

Whatever the motivations, I sure hope the SACP reflects internally upon such a statement as it's a weird position to hold for a communist group.

[Palingenisis]

How any organisation calling itself communist can defend the structure of the bourgeois state (especially in the form of police stations) is completely beyond me. The outcry at halting the circulation of Capital (which is what happens when public infrastructure is sabotaged) is utterly ridiculous, we might as well condemn strikes because they prevent workers from getting their commodities.:rolleyes:

Social Democrat used to mean Revolutionary Communist. Now it has a very different meaning. In India you have parties named Communist that are in essence neo-liberal.

Wasnt the SACP part of a popular front with the ANC that they continued after the abolition of the racist Aparteid laws? Not very radical or "Anti-Revisionist" of them.

However on the topic of police stations. Plenty of people on this will say ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) while believing professional volunteer soldiers in even Imperialist armies are "proletarians" and "fellow workers"....What shocked me though in a history of the post WWI revolutionary struggles in Germany that I read was that whole police forces went over to the side of the revolution and that the USPD had an quite a big influence over the police in many places while as the professional core of the army was the backbone of the counter-revolution. Obviously police groups like the RUC or the CRS are psychopathtic bastards but does that necessarily mean that all police men everywhere are? In a country like South Africa that is suffering from a crime wave people may well feel grateful for police stations.

[Ravachol]

Social Democrat used to mean Revolutionary Communist. Now it has a very different meaning. In India you have parties named Communist that are in essence neo-liberal.

Wasnt the SACP part of a popular front with the ANC that they continued after the abolition of the racist Aparteid laws? Not very radical or "Anti-Revisionist" of them.

However on the topic of police stations. Plenty of people on this will say ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) while believing professional volunteer soldiers in even Imperialist armies are "proletarians" and "fellow workers"....What shocked me though in a history of the post WWI revolutionary struggles in Germany that I read was that whole police forces went over to the side of the revolution and that the USPD had an quite a big influence over the police in many places while as the professional core of the army was the backbone of the counter-revolution. Obviously police groups like the RUC or the CRS are psychopathtic bastards but does that necessarily mean that all police men everywhere are? In a country like South Africa that is suffering from a crime wave people may well feel grateful for police stations.

My (and most other Anarchists') position on the police isn't direct against the policemen as persons, it's directe against their socio-political function as part of the armed wing of the State. The example you are referring to goes to show that there's only one sensible thing a policeman can do: desert!

[Palingenisis]

My (and most other Anarchists') position on the police isn't direct against the policemen as persons, it's directe against their socio-political function as part of the armed wing of the State. The example you are referring to goes to show that there's only one sensible thing a policeman can do: desert!

Yeah but there are police like riot police etc who's primary aim is defence of the State and capital.

Than you have police who's primarary aim is keeping basic order in a community...Though of course in a revolutionary situation they will have to make a chioce.

A local police man somewhere in the backend of rural France and some psychopath in the CRS are just not the same thing.

[bricolage]

Wasnt the SACP part of a popular front with the ANC that they continued after the abolition of the racist Aparteid laws? Not very radical or "Anti-Revisionist" of them.
The SACP is part of the Tripartite alliance which has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid, it consists of them, COSATU (the South African trade union congress) and, most importantly, the ANC. It is important to note the SACP and ANC are more than just an alliance, there is often strong overlap between their members and I believe, although am not 100% sure, that you can actually be a member of both.

[Ravachol]

Yeah but there are police like riot police etc who's primary aim is defence of the State and capital.

Than you have police who's primarary aim is keeping basic order in a community...Though of course in a revolutionary situation they will have to make a chioce.

A local police man somewhere in the backend of rural France and some psychopath in the CRS are just not the same thing.

While they are not the same thing, 'keeping order in a community' is just as problematic as smashing down demonstrations or what not.

For who's 'order' is it that they 'keep'? The police enforce the set of rules as laid out by the state and thus are the physical representation of the state and it's logic and laws. The protection of private property and 'keeping the social peace' are it's primary tasks and as such are anathema to the communist project.

[Palingenisis]

While they are not the same thing, 'keeping order in a community' is just as problematic as smashing down demonstrations or what not.

For who's 'order' is it that they 'keep'? The police enforce the set of rules as laid out by the state and thus are the physical representation of the state and it's logic and laws. The protection of private property and 'keeping the social peace' are it's primary tasks and as such are anathema to the communist project.

Seriously now is it? What about protection from rape for instance? How do you propose to deal with rapists?

The right of say of pensioner to own some objects of sentimental value without getting them ripped of him or her by a scumbag isnt on the same level as the right to own huge share portfolios. Must people want to hold onto the little they have and live in relative safety. I dont think such desires are necessarily reactionary or at odds with desiring production and distribution to be socially owned and run for the social good as opposed to private profit.

[Ravachol]

Seriously now is it? What about protection from rape for instance? How do you propose to deal with rapists?


Communities should handle this themselves and set up their own organs for this. There is no excuse for the continued existence of the organs of the bourgeoisie. Apart from that, I've all too often seen the police neglect rape alltogether. They'd rather spend their time chasing someone who robbed a jewelry store :rolleyes:



The right of say of pensioner to own some objects of sentimental value without getting them ripped of him or her by a scumbag isnt on the same level as the right to own huge share portfolios.


Where did I say this? Property != Posession.

[Honggweilo]

Seriously now is it? What about protection from rape for instance? How do you propose to deal with rapists? .

with all due respect, the SA police had numerous reports of raping rapevictims in jail after being raped. Police corruption (and even the lack of dismantaling the old apartheit police apparatus in SA) is a big problem, and the police force is in no way homogenous in SA.


Communities should handle this themselves and set up their own organs for this. There is no excuse for the continued existence of the organs of the bourgeoisie. Apart from that, I've all too often seen the police neglect rape alltogether. They'd rather spend their time chasing someone who robbed a jewelry store

I think this is an too idealistic view of the transistion of a police apparatus to community led system of common law. Self-control of communities should be promoted, but the major cutback of police forces in SA also led to alot of chaos and organized crime in SA, with the lack of proper community control alternatives (which is indirectly promoting increasing police funding). In Johannesburg, private security/surveillance forces have taken over with the lack of security in the district, in direct service of capital, which imho is worse the state-loyal police forces. Also the private surveilence of gated Boer communities creates racial motivated policing. There should be a healthy balance here. This is btw not an excuse for the SACP section mentioning the protection of police stations, which is just wrong, especially after being a target of police repression alot lately during the COSATU/SACP led strikes.

[Ravachol]

I think this is an too idealistic view of the transistion of a police apparatus to community led system of common law. Self-control of communities should be promoted, but the major cutback of police forces in SA also led to alot of chaos and organized crime in SA


I don't think we should be talking in terms of order and organized crime. A self-run proletarian neighbourhood engaging in collective re-appropriations is 'organized crime' by every definition of the word. It's also embryonic communism.



with the lack of proper community control alternatives (which is indirectly promoting increasing police funding).


I'm not advocating 'community control' in an institutional sense. I'm advocating secession from the biopolitical framework of Capital, more or less what AbM or the Italian autonomists and Greek comrades are doing in some districts. The process of forming bonds on the basis of shared experiences of dispossesion (the proletarian condition) on a local level brings about a new order that ought to set up it's own internal organs. The expansion of this order ought to replace the dominant one.



In Johannesburg, private security/surveillance forces have taken over with the lack of security in the district, in direct service of capital, which imho is worse the state-loyal police forces.


While it might be worse (I fully agree with you on that), it doesn't mean that state-loyal police forces are 'neutral' at all. The police is the police ie. the armed wing of state and Capital. The police cannot be used for communist purposes because of their social function and the logic that organises them.

I'm not advocating making all police disappear right here and now so hierarchical gangs (the 'illegal' form of Capital) can take over. I'm advocating setting up our own order and pushing back the state and Capital.

[Palingenisis]

Communities should handle this themselves and set up their own organs for this. There is no excuse for the continued existence of the organs of the bourgeoisie. Apart from that, I've all too often seen the police neglect rape alltogether. They'd rather spend their time chasing someone who robbed a jewelry store :rolleyes:

The police around me dont create order at all, infact they letting crime gangs do what they do best (for what reasons I am more than happy to speculate on) this creates more problems because it means the community has to take its own defense in its hands which sounds good on paper but given its very limited resources tends to be in reality pretty brutal and ugly (and sometimes indeed unjust). A police force that would supply a minium service would actually make life a lot better.

[Soviet dude]

I don't think it would be appropriate to even call them a revisionist party, based purely on their godawful stances toward Zimbabwe. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this message is real.

[Honggweilo]

I don't think it would be appropriate to even call them a revisionist party, based purely on their godawful stances toward Zimbabwe. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this message is real.

what do you mean by "godawfull stances towards zimbabwe"? the SACP is pretty neutral on that subject actually.

ugh.. its exhausting sometimes taking a position between "lol stalinoids are all the same pure evil, just look at [enter silly unsourced prejudice here], and because [enter idiotic juxaposition here linking them to some historical banality] " and "lol, revisionists, they are not TRUUU ANTI-REVISIONIST STALIN/MAO/HOXHA AAAH MOTHERLAND!! " :rolleyes:

[Soviet dude]

www.sacp.org.za/main.php?include=docs/pr/2008/pr0427.html

Put it simply, only a liberal anti-communist could write this type of drivel.

[Honggweilo]

www.sacp.org.za/main.php?include=docs/pr/2008/pr0427.html

Put it simply, only a liberal anti-communist could write this type of drivel.

and you still believe mugabe is a true anti-imperialist and the ZANU-PF is not spouting the same drivel as the populist faction of the ANC? You dont see the SACP giving support to the western sponsered opposition. Its attacking the privitisation by the national bourgeoisie of state enterpises, whats wrong with that? Mugabe's "anti-imperialism" is a result of grassroot pressure from within his own party because of his major fuck ups of being an IMF tool in the 90's, and still he isnt changing anything. Besides, the SACP and the SAYCL still has good links with the ZANU-PF youth.

[Soviet dude]

I think you have not read this piece carefully. Only the first few statements deal with Zimbabwe and the ZANU-PF. The rest of them deal with their own situation. Allow to quote the relevant section:


The SACP condemns in the strongest terms the state-sponsored violence and harassment directed against opposition supporters and communities in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans are being punished for rejecting at the polls President Mugabe and the ruling clique in ZANU PF. But the governments of SADC, including our own government, must also assume some measure of responsibility for the latest crisis. President Mbeki, in particular, stubbornly refused to learn anything from the previous electoral events in Zimbabwe. This time around, once more, SADC allowed Mugabe to run circles around it. Mugabe unilaterally declared an election date before the mediation process was anywhere near complete and in defiance of the SADC Protocols on elections. Notwithstanding this, in the run-up to the most recent electoral event we were being assured that everything was in place for free and fair elections and there were just a few "procedural" matters outstanding. This denialist complacency once more raised false hopes and once more exposed millions of ordinary Zimbabweans to the wrath of Mugabe`s police state.
But, of course, the main culpability rests with Mugabe and the ZANU PF leading clique. Now is the time for the maximum isolation of this regime. The SACP salutes the role played by our alliance partner COSATU, and specifically its affiliate SATAWU, in refusing to off-load and transport the Chinese arms shipment. We call for the consolidation of Southern African Zimbabwe solidarity networks that have increasingly emerged in the recent weeks. We call on the South African government to suspend visa waivers for Zimbabwean police and defence force personnel. The easy access that they enjoy to South Africa (in contrast to the majority of Zimbabweans) is shielding them from the worst of the all-round socio-economic crisis in their country. We say the Mugabe government must step down. Notwithstanding the flawed nature of the elections, it is clear they lost. We say that either SADC must urgently demonstrate in the following days its capacity to deal decisively with the dangerous impasse, or international intervention must be broadened to include the AU and UN.


This is treachery of the highest order. It is sheer lies, and openly advocates conspiring with imperialism to strangle Zimbabwe. To call the SACP "revisionist" would be an understatement; even revisionist parties don't do this sort of shit.

[Honggweilo]

I think you have not read this piece carefully. Only the first few statements deal with Zimbabwe and the ZANU-PF. The rest of them deal with their own situation. Allow to quote the relevant section:




This is treachery of the highest order. It is sheer lies, and openly advocates conspiring with imperialism to strangle Zimbabwe. To call the SACP "revisionist" would be an understatement; even revisionist parties don't do this sort of shit.

http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?include=pubs/umsebenzi2/2000/aug1.html

this gives a more thougrough analysis of the SACP's few on Zimbabwe, instead of a press release. Considering their own position on the same ellements within the ANC, its not suprising.

also, even in 2000 (when there were honest trade union activists in the alliance), the didnt hold any illusions concidering the "opposition" and the MDC


Shifting class allegiances in ZANU-PF
After its landslide 1980 election victory, Mugabe’s ZANU quite rapidly began to change character. The upper echelons formed the political elite in the post-independence government. The second-layer leadership became officers and NCOs in the new army. Thousands of rank and file combatants were demobilised and returned to their remote peasant farms. From there they could hardly influence the ongoing evolution of post-independence affairs. Urban students and trade unions had been supportive but largely marginal in the struggle. In the early years after independence they were organised as tame appendages of the ruling party.

These developments were unfortunately similar to those that have characterised many former liberation movements on our continent. After ascendancy to political power, the class alliances within the liberation movement shift from the pre-independence alliance between the working class, the peasantry and progressive sections of the petty bourgeoisie to a new alliance between these (formerly) progressive elements of the petty bourgeoisie and sections of local and international capital. This is usually brought about by the marginalisation of the working class and the peasantry in the post-independence reconstruction programmes. Without participation of the masses, the petty bourgeoisie, now in control of state institutions and within the context of the domination of imperialism, seeks to advance its interests in accumulation into an alliance with sections of local and international capital. The end result of these developments has always been the continuation of the economic structure of the colonial era, albeit under new circumstances, thus sacrificing the interests of working class, the peasantry and the poor.

The growing bureaucratisation of ZANU-PF, as a result of similar processes, left it vulnerable to external pressure. In the late 1980s and through the 1990s Mugabe was unable to resist pressures from the World Bank and the IMF, and was forced to implement harsh structural adjustment programmes. Growing hardship amongst the urban masses saw the once tame ZCTU pursuing a more militant in the 1990s. The election results basically shows that ZANU-PF has lost the support of the organised working class, the urban masses, and the former ZAPU support in Matebeleland.

Where to?
However, the electoral performance of the MDC does not in itself mean that it is inherently a progressive organisation better able to advance the historic goals of the national liberation movement. It would however be reckless not to realise that within the ranks of MDC are to be found progressive workers and former liberation fighters and a mass genuinely disgruntled. But at the same time the MDC is also backed by conservative forces whose mission is to roll back the national liberation movement, and might be positioning themselves to implement the World Bank programme better than ZANU-PF. This is partly illustrated by the fact that the MDC has no clear programme on the key issues facing the Zimbabwean revolution.

The challenge of the Zimbabwean people is to rebuild the liberation movement, root it amongst the mass of the people, and return to a path of pursuing the original demands of the people - land, economic transformation and the struggle for socialism. It is this programme that the SACP, and indeed our movement as a whole, should be supporting and seeking to strengthen.

[Honggweilo]

and a more recent one, with fewpoint from marxists from the ZANU-PF itself


Zimbabwe: 'A bourgeois state without a bourgeoisie'?

Blade Nzimande, General Secretary

On 21 March South Africa celebrates Human Rights Day. The SACP will be joining millions of other South Africans in commemorating this day. In addition we are going to be using March, the human rights month, and April 2007, the Chris Hani month to take forward our struggle for the transformation of the financial sector. We will embark on mass demonstrations reiterating our demand for a total once-off amnesty for all of the estimated 5.5 million people blacklisted by the faceless credit bureuax, a demand for a new model to finance low cost housing, and a complete rejection of above average interest rates on bonds for low cost housing.

Unfortunately we are celebrating human rights month in the context of a deteriorating human rights situation in neighbouring Zimbabwe. The SACP, together with many other progressive forces, strongly condemned the latest round of repression directed at opposition parties by the Zimbabwean government. The SACP continues to express its solidarity with the workers and the poor of Zimbabwe, who are not only facing the repressive actions of the police, but whose socio-economic conditions continue to rapidly deteriorate. To this end, on 3-4 April 2007, the SACP will be joining other progressive forces that will be holding demonstrations in solidarity with the Zimbabwean people.

However, much as principled condemnation and highlighting of current developments conditions in Zimbabwe is absolutely necessary, this is not enough. For the sake of the revolution in the Southern African region, it is important that we constantly analyse the underlying causes of developments in Zimbabwe.

It is also important that our condemnation must be distinguished from the chorus of opportunistic condemnation by parties like the Democratic Alliance (DA) and large sections of bourgeois media. Otherwise how do we explain such condemnations on Zimbabwe, when these very same critics are completely silent on the more than 3 decades of severe repression in a country like Swaziland? We are also equally concerned about the very weak stance taken by our government in the light of the very serious latest developments in Zimbabwe.

Our point of departure is that a former liberation movement that begins to turn the repressive organs of a state over which it presides against what was part of its own constituency, is a movement and a state in severe crises.

The SACP, in late 2003 undertook a fact finding mission to Zimbabwe. One of the things that struck us during this trip, a matter we also raised in our discussions with some of the leadership of ZANU-PF, was the extent to which any voice critical of ZANU-PF and government was labeled 'Blairite', 'racist inspired' or 'sell-out'. We asked of ZANU-PF, how come that such significant sections and former allies of the former liberation movement - the trade unions, progressive NGOs, mass organizations, the churches - have all of a sudden become part of an imperialist plot. Whilst not denying that imperialism has always sought to undermine post-independence governments especially those led by former liberation movements, is what is happening in Zimbabwe not also a reflection of the declining hegemony of the former liberation movement itself and why? We were asking these questions not because of a 'holier than thou' attitude, but to honestly explore why previously heroic liberation movements, such as in Zimbabwe, can rapidly deteriorate to the extent of significant sections of society rejects them. And also to force ourselves to explore what mistakes such movements themselves might have committed to produce such situations.

The Zimbabwean developments pose other very pertinent questions that should constantly be canvassed by all liberation movements in our region. Is it inevitable, as Afro-pessimists and other reactionary forces are wont to say, that post independent states, led by former liberation movements are bound to fail? Or posed from a progressive angle, are liberation struggles and post-independence governments led by former liberation movements, bound to degenerate especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union? An even more pertinent question, also relevant for our own South African realities, is whether national liberation struggles that fail to rapidly advance towards socialist-type or full-blown socialist dispensations are bound to degenerate into some kind of deformed bourgeois democracies or repressive oligarchies?

Ibbo Mandaza, a leading Zimbabwean scholar and prominent ZANU PF intellectual, from about the mid 1980s used to argue that the explanation for the many problems facing post-colonial states in our continent, especially in the Southern African region, was that they were 'bourgeois states without a bourgeoisie'. He regarded Zimbabwe as one expression of such a state. I used to vehemently object to this characterization as I considered it thoroughly un-Marxist: how can a state be characterized as bourgeois when it does not have a bourgeoisie?

Mandaza's characterization is also ambiguous, and can be subject to various interpretations which, I thought, does not help us to understand our Southern African realities. This characterization of a 'bourgeois state without a bourgeoisie' can be interpreted, as found also within sections of our own movement, as implying that for our countries to flourish we need to develop an indigenous bourgeoisie, as a precondition to overcome underdevelopment. Mandaza's own elaboration of this, I thought, was closer to this, though informed by a more leftist interpretation.

Mandaza's argument, amongst others, was that African post-colonial states were characterized by the fact that political power was transferred, often through negotiated settlements preceded by protracted liberation struggles, to a domestic political elite whilst the economy remained in the hands of a (white) colonial bourgeoisie, either located in the metropole or, like in the case of South Africa, domestically. And any stratum of an indigenous bourgeoisie that emerged out of these post-colonial realities was highly dependent on the 'metropolitan' bourgeoisie as well as over its control of the state apparatuses.

Whilst I still remain highly skeptical of Mandaza's characterization, perhaps his elaboration is after all not so off wide the mark. Perhaps a generous but Marxist interpretation of the notion of 'a bourgeois state without a bourgeoisie' helps to highlight a number of important issues about the challenges facing Zimbabwe in particular and, to a more or lesser degree, the post-colonial state in general on the African continent.

In our own Tripartite Alliance we have on occasion, albeit inadequately, debated Zimbabwe over the last few years. The one argument found within our movement to explain the foundations of the current crisis in Zimbabwe is that during the first decade of Zimbabwe's freedom (1980-1990), the government legitimately spent vast amounts of money on social services (health, education, welfare, etc), but without due regard to the fiscus and therefore the sustainability of such spending. When such spending began to be a drain on the fiscus, this argument continues, the Zimbabwean government was forced to turn to the International Monetary Fund, thus sliding into a spiral of further debt and all its consequences on ordinary people. In our ranks this argument was also used to justify our own macro-economic policy, GEAR.

The SACP has always been of the view that the above argument is very superficial. The fundamental problem in many post-colonial states is that of transfer (usually without any significant transformation) of political power to local political elites, whilst leaving the colonial character of the economy untransformed. In such a situation the character of the economy is unable to sustain a transformative effort, instead it continues to serve the interests of the colonial bourgeoisie and local economic elites, whilst actively undermining (if not reversing) developmental measures aimed at addressing the interests of ordinary workers and the poor. This was also the Zimbabwe of the 1990s, the era of the structural adjustment programmes, which actively reversed even the many gains made during the first decade of Zimbabwe's democracy.

In such situations, a highly compradorial and parasitic layer of the bourgeoisie drawn from indigenous populations emerges, without its own independent 'means of accumulation', thus relying on its access to state power to preserve and reproduce its wealth.

Failure to transform the conditions of the ordinary mass of the people for the better generates resentment. As we have argued before, such situations produce a whole host of behaviour from the ruling elites. There usually is denialism about the scale and extent of the problems facing those societies. The recent SAFM interview of ZANU PF leader Nathan Shamuyarira with Xolani Gwala is a case in point, including the externalization of all the problems (eg. 'adventurism or imperialist co-option of trade unions').

The last stages in such degeneration are a turn against the masses when they begin to legitimately struggle for better conditions. Usually in such cases, liberation movements that during the struggle against the colonial regimes were able to distinguish between the enemy and people's camps, begin to confuse expressions of genuine grievances of the people's camp for enemy fire, and real enemy strategies (eg. Structural adjustment programmes) are treated as the necessary instruments to transform society!

Without by any means undermining the role of imperialism in destabilizing post-colonial states, especially those presided over by radical national liberation movements, it is developments as outlined above that creates further conditions for imperialist interventions of all sorts to finally defeat those former liberation movements.

Indeed, one key feature in Zimbabwe in the current period is that there has now been a rupture between the ruling elite and sections of the colonial bourgeoisie (both domestic and global), primarily as a result of the measures taken by the Zimbabwean government on the land issue.

Perhaps Mandaza's notion of the post-colonial state as a 'bourgeois state without a bourgeoisie', can in such circumstances also be interpreted to mean that it is impossible in a continent like ours to build even bourgeois democratic states, for two main reasons. Firstly, there are no conditions to build such societies, given the scale of underdevelopment and inequality in society. And, secondly, the location of such states in the current imperialist global division of labour, as such states continue to be exporters of raw materials (and cheap labour), import dependent, thus further enriching the North - the real bourgeois states with a bourgeoisie!

Unfortunately in such instances, such as the case of Zimbabwe, the opposition that emerges becomes largely reactive and unable to provide a more superior alternative vision in such conditions. That alternative and superior vision can, in our circumstances, only be that of the completion of the national liberation struggle and its vision; that national liberation without full social and economic emancipation shall always remain incomplete and liable to serious reversals. One without the other is a foundation for future regressions. This is the only full meaning of human rights, and it is for this reason that during this South Africa human rights month we are escalating our campaigns to highlight that there can be no human rights without socio-economic rights.

In short, the building of independent working class formations in society as vehicles for socialist oriented national democratic revolutions remain as relevant as ever in our post-colonial realities. This is the only basis for addressing the challenge of underdevelopment as part of a struggle for socialism!

Asikhulume!

i think this is a pretty coherent analysis of the Zimbabwean state and the ZANU-PF

[Honggweilo]

http://www.facebook.com/notes/capital/government-officials-arrested-for-murdering-whistle-blower/486704029777

interesting piece to read, also gives insight into what kind of repression SACP members have to deal with, even from within ANC circles.