South African Communist Party

[Rebelwithcause]

Does anyone know anything about them? I'm currently reading one of the publications from their journal from the 1970s. I am a bit confused. Wikipedia seems to make it clear that they started out as a largely conservative party geared towards making only the white South African workers united. But then,afterwards,they become more progressive and start to include blacks within their party with an agenda towards working for better social conditions for them as well and destroying the apartheid system. But then the history shows that they seem to go back and forth between being concerned only for the white South-African population and at other times, they fight for blacks. Can anyone tell me what is going on here? Any sources that may help me to clear this up? What exactly has been their ideology? Has it just been a series of changes/struggles?

I am just very interested to see the way in which a Marxist-Lenin rhetoric has took off and developed in Africa (if it really did at all).

[Tommy4ever]

The South African Communist Party is rather large and influencial. It has spent decades in alliance with the ANC, taking part in the fight against Apartheid, supporting the MPLA side in Angola and it continues to take part in ANC governments.

I believe its official ideology is Marxist-Leninism, but it has followed the ANC's capitalist government since the fall fo Apartheid, even if dragging its feet at times.

Before and after Apartheid the SACP has been rather influencial (and for a modern CP, pretty large).

[jake williams]

Does anyone know anything about them? I'm currently reading one of the publications from their journal from the 1970s. I am a bit confused. Wikipedia seems to make it clear that they started out as a largely conservative party geared towards making only the white South African workers united. But then,afterwards,they become more progressive and start to include blacks within their party with an agenda towards working for better social conditions for them as well and destroying the apartheid system.
This is a really simplistic revisionist history.

When the party was founded, CI policy was basically that parties should organize along a national basis, ie. white South Africans shouldn't try to organize a party for black South Africans. The policy was reversed shortly thereafter and the SACP changed in turn. The party was never a racist party in terms of ideology, and hasn't been a racially organized party since the 20s.


But then the history shows that they seem to go back and forth between being concerned only for the white South-African population and at other times, they fight for blacks.
Do you have any evidence for this?


What exactly has been their ideology? Has it just been a series of changes/struggles?
It's a Marxist-Leninist party, albeit one very much shaped by the struggle against apartheid. It's been a major part of the anti-apartheid movement basically since its inception as an organized, multinational movement.

It's still a part of the ANC at the electoral level, and is absolutely (albeit with some unfortunate exceptions) a voice of the left and of workers within the ANC. There's significant debate within the party about whether or not this arrangement should continue, but it's not a simple debate. The left is increasingly influential within the ANC since major retreats in the 90s.

[PhoenixAsh]

Does anyone know anything about them? I'm currently reading one of the publications from their journal from the 1970s. I am a bit confused. Wikipedia seems to make it clear that they started out as a largely conservative party geared towards making only the white South African workers united. But then,afterwards,they become more progressive and start to include blacks within their party with an agenda towards working for better social conditions for them as well and destroying the apartheid system. But then the history shows that they seem to go back and forth between being concerned only for the white South-African population and at other times, they fight for blacks. Can anyone tell me what is going on here? Any sources that may help me to clear this up? What exactly has been their ideology? Has it just been a series of changes/struggles?

I am just very interested to see the way in which a Marxist-Lenin rhetoric has took off and developed in Africa (if it really did at all).

I don't know what wikipedia article you have read...but since its establishment as the CPSA in the 20's the goal of the party was always anti-apartheid....and at times even held that the nation belonged to the black people alone (from 1924 to 1946).

But its very beginnings was as an organisation which consisted mainly of white workers. That was ended in 1924 when the party began a policy of Afrikanisation and directed its aims purely on the African liberation.

This policy was abandoned in 1946 when the party refocussed on uniting all the workers regardless of race and national origin. Its during this period that the CPSA finally managed to create an alliance with the previously very anti-communist ANC.

It managed to gain so much influence in the ANC that it composed its entire armed wing and had a huge amount of influence not only on the course of the ANC (which did remain non socialist) but also helped form the course and shape of the struggle against apartheid.

After the fall of the apartheid regime the SACP still had influence. They helped in the fall of Mbeki and support Zuma, who is a member of the SACP...but is more left populist than communist/socialist.

They have become somewhat reformist in the last few decades...supporting social-democracy and not wanting to implement an economic revolution per se. Since a lot of new laws are passed against white workers these days they also oppose this form of new capitalism and strife to create a multi-ethnic South-Africa on the basis of equality and united workers struggle regardless of race and ethnic origins. So yes...these days it could happen that they rally for white workers against the government or it could happen that they rally behind the government in support of new anti-capitalist laws.

Its a bit of a grey area where they are going exactly. Communism isn't all that popular at the moment in SA.

[jake williams]

hindsight20/20's history is quite good, and I only have two points to raise.


They have become somewhat reformist in the last few decades...supporting social-democracy and not wanting to implement an economic revolution per se.
The SACP isn't in a position to demand a total nationalization of the economy. Their membership and leadership (again, with one or two unfortunate exceptions) very much support a socialist economy, and they're doing what they can to achieve that, under severe constraints.


Communism isn't all that popular at the moment in SA.
I wouldn't say that at all. The new right wing (around Zuma and Malema especially, because the old right wing was semi-purged) adopts left populist rhetoric precisely because it's popular. There is a faction of the black petty-bourgeoisie to which it appeals, but by and large the mass of the population wants to control the economy. It's not communism per se, but if you're suggesting that the SACP is constrained because it's to the left of the population, you're mistaken. The white and international bourgeoisie, the black petty bourgeoisie, and the right wing of the ANC, which hides from the former and supports the latter, are the enemy. South African workers are more than in favour of socialism, because increasingly, they realize that capitalism isn't working for them. The exceptions are mostly petty-bourgeois.

There is also sort of an ultra-left opposition to the ANC which doesn't support capitalism but has reasons not to trust the state. It's in the ANC's court to change their minds, but while I think a lot of the ultra-left opposition to the ANC is counterproductive, it's not like there aren't good reasons for it, and it shouldn't be confused by the rightist and bourgeois opposition to the ANC (ie. the pro-capitalist opposition), because it's very much of a different character.

[bricolage]

Unless we go back a very long way, the SACP has never been a party for the 'whites'. It however remains a party of the bosses and an integrated part of the state mechanism. It's Marxism was solely reduced to a crude stagism whereas the ANC would be allowed to carry out the 'democratic revolution' before the SACP would surge through with the pathway to socialism, clearly this has not happened. There is a strong interconnection between the two parties, the SACP pretty much propelling Zuma to power and, I can't remember completely but I'm pretty sure dual membership is pretty common. What this has meant in practical terms is that the SACP has been fully complicit in the smashing of the hopes that end of apartheid brought. Case in point, GEAR the famous 'neoliberal turn' that resulted in South Africa becoming the first country to voluntarily embrace IMF structural adjustment, now the SACP now denounce it but at the time Alec Erwin (SACP member) was one of its primary architects and in 1996 they stated; "The South African Communist Party welcomes the government’s Growth, Employment and Redistribution Macro-Economic Policy. We fully back the objectives of this macro-economic strategy”. It's hardly surprising, Jeff Radebe privatising public services as Minister for Public Enterprises whilst at the same time sitting on the Central Committee of the SACP, Blade Nzimande had a famous 1.2 million rand luxury BMW, and so forth. I got this quote from a SACP MP but I can't remember who, anyway it sums it up pretty well; "Life looks different when you are being driven around in a BMW with tinted window. You move so fast sometimes you can hardly see the shacks anymore. You almost forget."

But then what about actual workers struggles? They had this to say about the 2001 General Strike; “While the general strike is obviously political in character (it is about seeking to influence and change aspects of current policy), the Politburo understands that the strike is not about challenging or undermining the legitimacy of our ANC-led government” because of course their primary concern is preserving their position and that of the ANC and the general Tripartite Alliance.
They have called the cops on the SECC (a grassroots network who illegally reconnect electricity for those who have been cut of due to non payments) and condemn Abahlali baseMjondolo (a grassroots movement of shackdwellers) because "Blockading Public Roads is anarchy and reactionary";
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.It's all pretty evident, they are a part of the state, they are there to protect the state, South African workers struggle against the state and capital, the SACP stand against them. Where Stalinism meets neoliberalism.