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Volume 12, No. 11, 28 March 2013 |
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Red Alert Address by Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr BE Nzimande MP at the ETDP Seta Conference on 25 March 2013 |
By Blade Nzimande
Introduction
Let me start by thanking the ETDP SETA Board for inviting me to this important event. Since its inception, the ETDP SETA has been an active government entity in finding solutions to the critical challenges in our education and training system. SETAs are in the first instance public entities, not private institutions that should be playing a vital role in helping us realise and revitalise our vision of a coherent, differentiated, and demand-responsive post-schooling education and training system. At the heart of such a system must be to address the education and training needs of all South Africans, but especially the youth.
Contextual Background
Ladies and Gentlemen, the birth of the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) in 2009 marked a significant step forward for our post-schooling education and training system. Emerging from the periphery of our education and training system, the FET colleges have now been prioritised as crucial institutions in the post-schooling system. Their transfer to the DHET provided the basis and opportunities for colleges to develop a clearer identity as institutions of choice for school leavers who wish to follow vocational learning pathways into the world of work. Other institutions mandated with improving skills levels in the country that became integral components under the DHET included:
- Adult Education and Training Institutions;
- Levy-grant institutions, i.e. SETAs, National Skills Fund (NSF); and
- Regulatory and quality assurance institutions, i.e. South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), Council for Higher Education (CHE) and Quality Council for Trade and Occupations (QCTO).
- Our universities and university system in general
Within the context of developing a comprehensive and responsive post school education and training system, radical transformation and repositioning of the entire SETA system has also become a priority. It is for this reason that as from next month we are introducing new SETA regulations whose aim is to address the needs of our youth, especially African and Coloured youth, and to drastically increase resources directed at producing artisans, technicians and professionals that our economy so desperately needs.
Given the large number of school leavers each year, and the high levels of competition for jobs, SETAs, working together with labour, employers and especially public FET colleges, must be a vehicle for better preparing youth with the necessary foundational knowledge and practical skills, and should assist them to gain access to workplace opportunities. This supports our vision of increasing the number of young people in jobs, whether through self-employment or being employed in the public or private sector.
It is for the above reasons, amongst others, that I have urged Setas to open offices in all our fifty colleges. This is meant to bring SETAs closer to our communities and to improve synergies between SETAs, public FET colleges and employers, both in the public and private sectors. I am pleased to report that SETA offices have been opened in 12 of our 50 colleges. This however has to be speeded up so that in this next financial year we will have SETA offices in all of our 50 public FET colleges.
I am also very pleased to hear that the ETDP SETA has taken the initiative of recruiting and deploying 200 learners in all 50 colleges to work in student counseling, even before we open SETA offices in all of our colleges. This is very important as one of the critical roles of SETA offices in public FET colleges is not only work placement, important as this may be, but also career guidance.
The role of the SETAs and their location in public FET colleges is also central in contributing to the concrete realisation of the emerging perspectives around youth employment and employability, as per discussions currently underway at Nedlac. I would like the SETAs and public FET colleges to clearly define and sufficiently resource their roles in promoting youth employability. The ETDP SETA must also clearly outline its own role and contribution in promoting youth employment and employability.
Achievements
Over the past few years, the Department has actively sought to stabilise and progressively expand the public college sector. We have made good strides in this regard and we are breaking new ground. Student enrolment in public FET colleges rose exponentially from about 350 000 in 2010 to over 650 000 in 2012. While I don’t have the actual figures as yet, I am certain that enrolment for 2013 has grown proportionally higher.
The expansion of the college sector has partly been achieved through massive cash injection into college bursaries through the NSFAS. This enabled us to effectively abolish fees to 165 273 students in 2011, meaning we are making important strides to meeting our commitment of progressively providing free education for the poor and deserving students. Our Green Paper on Post‐School Education and Training – which we are currently refining in our White Paper provides the policy rationale for our intention to continue expanding study opportunities as we seek to achieve a target of 4 000 000 students in FET colleges and other non-university post-school Institutions by 2030. I must emphasise though, that the increase in access and financial support for students must be coupled with an increase in throughput if we are going to achieve our vision of increasing the number of young people in jobs.
Student loans and Bursaries
Ladies and gentlemen, NSFAS funding for loans and bursaries to students in universities and colleges have expanded massively from R2.375 billion in 2008 to well over R6 billion this year.
In 2007 the Department introduced the Further Education and Training Bursary Scheme. In 2010, this allocation was R318-million, which has since increased quite significantly to R1, 2billion in 2011, R1, 7billion in 2012, and now around R1, 9billion for the 2013 academic year. Within the current year, the Department plans to reach 178 000 FET students with bursaries. These students should, however, meet the eligibility criteria, which are that the student demonstrates academic potential to pass his/her programme of study and also that the student should come from a poor family (i.e. demonstrate financial need).
In 2012, the Wholesale and Retail SETA provided bursaries for students in FET colleges to the value of R27-million. We are hoping that ETDP and other SETAs will emulate this positive gesture. I am aware that ETDP SETA has deployed 200 graduates across FET colleges, and this will improve the image of the college sector and student uptake.
Challenges and Opportunities
Despite the successes, the sector is still confronted with challenges. One of the biggest challenges confronting us now is that the quality of education given in colleges is still not satisfactory. This contributes to the low status for colleges and often makes them to be second or third choice institutions for many students, although this is beginning to change as exemplified by the improved enrolment rates over the past three years.
We must therefore continue to mobilize and augment the good work that we are doing as a sector to ensure that the quality is to improve and that any student who completes college can get a job or, at least an internship for a year to give them valuable practical and workplace experience.
Another important measure we are undertaking to improve the status of the FET colleges is to ensure that college education should enable those who want to study further at university level to do so. Articulation between colleges, between colleges and universities, between colleges and workplaces, is essential. A college education or qualification must not be a dead-end. Our formal institutions should make transition from one institutional-type to the other flexible and possible. A classical example is the Recognition of Prior Learning and adult education. It is noteworthy that I had appointed Ministerial Task Teams on both institutional-types and I will soon be releasing the reports to solicit public comments on their recommendations.
While we have seen substantial improvements in the pass rates of college students, the current results do not yet indicate that we are providing good quality instruction. Part of the challenge relates to the students’ ability to engage with the vocational theory, which is unlike any content they would have experienced at school. But of more concern is the ability of many college lecturers to teach this theory in a way which provides meaning for students and is applicable to the workplace. Many of our college lecturers are inadequately qualified and have had little or no exposure to workplace environments; and this compromises delivery of the curriculum. In response to this challenge, we have developed a turnaround strategy to improve the quality of teaching and management. This includes short-term interventions to stabilise some of the weaker colleges.
I would particularly like the ETDP SETA, as it does with ECD and grade R practitioners, as well as with its other supportive interventions, to clearly define its role in the training and workplace exposure of FET college lecturers.
Teaching and learning performance is also reliant on an effective culture of performance. This requires college governance, leadership and management to provide the conditions which encourage this, and where good quality teaching and learning is the core focus of the institution. Unfortunately, in many of our colleges, teaching and learning performance has not been given the necessary attention and a substantial cultural shift is needed if the quality of delivery is to improve. The Department has been working hard towards the development of specialised qualifications for college lecturers, special interventions to strengthen student support, and so on.
Quality in colleges is also measured by the readiness of college graduates for the workplace. Over many years our colleges have become increasingly detached from workplaces. This has impacted on the extent to which graduates are gaining access to workplace opportunities. This has had a particularly negative effect on the large majority of Black graduates who do not have access to the necessary networks that enable access to such opportunities. As a result, Black graduates are finding it difficult to find jobs that are related to their studies. We therefore require our colleges to take more responsibility for creating and maintaining linkages with industry. This will enable students to access vital workplace experience essential to completing their preparation for the workplace and giving them a first foothold in the labour market. I have gone further to establish a Chief Directorate for Work Integrated Learning, to coordinate and facilitate on-the-job trainee opportunities for graduates. All SETAs need to play an even more prominent role in work-placement.
The drive towards increased artisan training has provided one important mechanism for linking colleges and industry in a focused and constructive manner. However, the important progress that we have made in the artisan development arena must now extend into other critical areas of the economy, so that we can further extend the benefits of college-industry relationships. In driving this project home, I launched in February this year, the 2013-The Year of the Artisan campaign.
Role of the SETAs in general and the ETDP SETA in particular
SETAs have a crucial role as custodians of skills levy funds. SETAs have a relationship with virtually all significant employers in the country and the National Skills Development Strategy has charged them with working with the public FET colleges and universities (especially universities of technology). They must not only fund partnerships between educational institutions and employers but must also use their influence and labour market knowledge to promote work-place placements while students are studying and placing them in jobs after they complete their studies.
We also want SETAs to focus their training activities on the provision of full occupational or professional qualifications rather than on short courses, although there is still obviously a need for the latter to keep workers abreast of new developments in their areas of work. We have to improve access to SETA services through collaboration with FET colleges and Universities of Technology.
We have a need to strengthen our national capacity to support FET colleges and their graduates. NGOs, universities, SETAs and employers are important elements of the requisite capacity. Let me remind the delegates that I have also set-up a ministerial task team to look at establishing the South African Institute for Vocational Education and Training (SAIVCET). The task team was to advise me on the roles, responsibilities, shape and size of such an institute. I have received the report of the Task Team and I am studying their recommendations. In the same breath, I also commissioned a review of the National Curriculum (Vocational). I have also received the draft report, of which I am currently studying.
SETAs have commenced with projects of partnering with FET colleges with the intention to ensure that SETA offices are opened in rural areas and townships. Such an inclusive approach will ensure that the national skills development interventions and projects are not only accessible to those with a privilege to stay in urban and developed areas but also benefit those who are in the periphery of the economic system. I was invited to the opening of the CATHSSETA office at the Mthashane FET college on 12 March, and I am aware of a number of similar undertakings in other colleges.
The ETDP SETA has a particularly important role in expanding and strengthening its role in supporting the rest of our education and training system; including the training of facilitators. i however want to raise the broader issue of the training of SETA practitioners in general, that is, those who can be trained to understand and play an effective role in the SETA system as a whole.
Please do pally your mind on the training and development of STA practitioners and professionals within the broader context of an integrated post school education and training system. This would also require intensive and ongoing research and broadly to study closely the capacity building needs of the entire SETA system in so far as its capacity to build an effective education and train system is
The ETDP SETA has to assist us in reconceptualising and revitalising Adult Education and Training to improve the level of education for adult learners and integrate them into the economic mainstream. The challenge of re-skilling and re-tooling of unemployed graduates to improve their employability and their prospects for effective participation in the economy and society. Foundational learning programmes to address failure rate in Further Education and Training (FET) colleges is something that the ETDP SETA will also have to look into to address issues of quality in the colleges. The role of ETDP SETA in addressing and responding to the criticisms being expressed that the quality and relevance of FET college programmes leaves much to be desired.
The levy increase from 10% to 30% from public service departments will result in an increase of funds to the ETDP SETA as from the next financial year. This means the ETDP SETA has a bigger responsibility to make an even bigger difference, including in the areas outlined above. This therefore means that there must be increased collaboration between the ETDP SETA, PSETA and PALAMA to address skills development in the public service.
SETAs cannot just be about the dishing out of millions of rands of training tenders, without the systematic development of labour market sector experts and practitioners. In short we need to develop a new cadre of SETA practitioners and experts. I am also concerned about the phenomenon of what one can call 'Setapreneurs', whose sole purpose is to fleece the SETA funds often corruptly and without provision of quality training. These are some of those who took me to court some few years back, wanting to protect their turf of enriching themselves and their cronies through SETA monies.
I am also worried that the ETDP SETA seems to be held at ransom by an element of 'Setapreneurs' which feels entitled to the ETDP SETA money, and by seeking to continuously take the SETA to court. We need to develop a strategy to combat this, including sensitizing our criminal justice system (CJS) and the judiciary itself about the threats posed by Setapreneurs to our entire post school education and training system, especially our efforts to address the societal priority of youth employability. These Setapreneurs are by the way very different from the many honest training providers, both in the public and private sectors, who follow the rules and not short cuts; and who are genuinely interested in skilling our nation. SETApreneurs charge exorbitant fees for minimal, irrelevant or no training at all. Our department would like to partner with all the Setas to eliminate this phenomenon. And the ETDP SETA, as capacity builder for other SETAs, is an important partner in this regard. Together with the ETDP, all other SETAs, ad the rest of our post-school education and training institutions, we need to build a strong public sector education and training system as the foundation for sustainable skills development in our country!
I also wish to emphasize to employers in both the public and private sectors to ensure that they open their workplaces as training spaces. I must however use this platform to express my grave concern at how sections of employers see the SETA system, especially its mandatory grants, as monies to be recklessly claimed by employers even if no training has taken place. We call upon all genuine employers to resist this as it is against and will certainly undermine skills provision in our country and continue with the plundering of the resources in the hands of the SETAs.
I also wish to urge the trade union movement to act as true guardians of education and training in the workplace, in the SETAs, in our public FET colleges and at our universities. This is one of the critical responsibilities of the organized working class if it is indeed to act as the principal motive force for transformation in our country. Without the active participation and vigilance of the working class there can be no genuine education and training in our country.
Conclusion
We recognize the fact that in order to make a positive impact in improving national socio-economic conditions, our policy and transformative interventions should be premised on credible and progressive research outputs. As such, collaborations between SETAs and universities around improving the research capacity are necessary. Such will have positive spin-offs on the SETAs themselves and on the entire skills development challenge in our country. I would be engaging all the SETAs to contribute towards a centralised research fund and effort - to support the entire SETA and sectorallabour market research and planning effort - and as part of strengthening our entire post-school education and training system.
Let me appreciate all the good work done by the ETDP SETA. This SETA has to understand its role clearly as that of supporting the entire education and training system, and should therefore seek to act as such.
I wish you a fruitful Conference and am looking forward to receiving and engaging with the resolutions and outputs of this Conference.
Dankie! Thank You! Ngiyabonga!
Dear comrade Jeremy
Irvin Jim and Zwelinzima Vavi, the State and Cde Wayile, Marikana, NUMSA and the NUM
How are you?
The last time we came across each other was in a campaign against labour broking and e-tolls, where you offered us some "clarifications". Long time, no see!
I trust that you have indeed settled down after relinquishing your ANC NEC position to focus on "reading and writing", doing some "intellectual work" and from time to time, now and then, dabble into leading the SACP, as you said when you declined to be nominated to the NEC of ANC. It is clear that your engagements in the ANC NEC, has led to an overall stagnation in "intellectual activity" in the entire movement. Your engagement in government is consistent with "intellectual work"; you have not resigned there. What holds back "intellectual work" is the ANC NEC, from which you declined to serve. If you can get out of that "un-intellectual" African National Congress leadership, then you can be able to "read and write" and do serious "intellectual work". Clearly, nothing moves in the entire movement on the intellectual front without you, or does it?
In your very first paragraph of your Open Letter to me, say: "Over the years you and I have had several debates. We have often differed. However, I would like to believe we've always agreed on at least one thing. If we are to build a vibrant socialist left in South Africa, then comradely ideological engagements (even robust ones) are a vital part of that project. Of course, as we proceed, we must safeguard the internal democratic spaces and processes of our respective organisations. Any factional manipulation from the outside must not be tolerated. Public spats in which you or I reach in to support this or that personality within each other's formations would be out of order."
It is clear, after reading your letter, that you have anointed yourself the official Marxist Pontiff whose duty it is to confer or take away the recognition of who is a real Marxist, "pseudo-Marxist", "pseudo-militant", "underlying opportunist", etc. You have also anointed yourself, and this we all know, to be an "ideological clarifier" in the midst of "ideological confusion". You "clarified" us on e-tolls, how good they are, if appropriately applied. Now that you have settled down from the hectic ANC NEC engagements, to do some "reading and writing" and "intellectual work", you seem to be back into the swing of things, pursuing your "intellectual work", to snuff out the usual "confusion" among "comrades".
But how are you a comrade to a "pseudo-Marxist" and a "pseudo-militant"? How can you be a comrade to a person you know is a "con-revolutionary"? What makes you to call me, who supports "vigilantes" against "sister unions", a comrade? I would understand if your charges were only against me, alone, "innocently confused", as you say, but you state in your letter that the entire NUMSA CC is not innocent. We support "vigilantes" against the NUM. And so, through me, you round us all up in the NUMSA CC and single-handedly chastise us with your whip of "ideological clarity" ["Let’s be clear", you say, towards the end of your letter].
The NUMSA CC should have waited patiently for you, I suppose, or even postponed its sitting, for you to find space in your extremely busy schedule in government, where you are "analysing certain state configurations", "discerning and acting upon the main class trajectories", "figuring how popular mobilisation can alter the class balance of forces", and so on, in the Departments of Transport and Public Works. Metalworkers should have waited for you to get back to "intellectual work", I suppose.
Look now, you show us off, how "confused" we are, the whole 311 000 workers, "confused", shown off by you, and you alone, in the entire country. The fact that many so-called "intellectuals" were quiet about the NUMSA CC statement, released six months ago, is further proof to you, that indeed, "there is no intellectual work" here, in the entire movement. Nothing moves without you Jeremy, especially when it comes to thinking, or does it?
Your open letter to me is the white smoke that signals that the Pope of Marxism in South Africa has arrived in COSATU House; serious "intellectual work" is on offer! I and Zwelinzima Vavi are top of your list of "intellectual work", you will "work us intellectually". NUMSA CC is an "intellectual project". I feel great sympathy for the two of us. But as a member of the NUMSA CC I might as well feel sympathy for my trade union too. Comrade Zwelinzima Vavi is my comrade, we are worker leaders, with limited facility to play with words (I know of no one who is a poet, wordsmith, you know, in the NUMSA CC), to engage in convoluted and "sophistricated logic", analysing "trajectories" and "configurations", of your letters and articles.
One thing I am convinced about though is that: your letter is not a comradely ideological engagement with me!Only you could not see that your open letter is in fact a factional manipulation from the outside of both COSATU and NUMSA and you are using your letter as a public spat to attack, isolate, de-legitimise, demonise, and destroy both Cdes Zwelinzima Vavi and myself, in our respective organisations. Your letter does exactly what you claim not to tolerate. You cannot be a comrade to people you know for sure that they are "con-revolutionaries", "pseudo-militants", "underlying opportunists" and "pseudo-Marxists", otherwise you are "pseudo" too. Birds of a feather flock together, English people say! You are obviously not of these "pseudo" feathers, of which we are, "logically". You are a cut above the rest of us Jeremy; you are a cut above the entire NUMSA CC, "logically".
Myself and Comrade Zwelinzima Vavi
Unless you take us for absolute fools, anyone or any organisation labelled as you have done cannot be a "Comrade" or "fraternal organisation" by any stretch of the imagination. All these "pseudo" labels you have determined fit us, from high above the intellectual tower, belong to people and organisations one would normally regard as enemies.
You, Jeremy, know very well that the SACP has vowed, officially, to isolate and defeat individuals who are in the formations of the ANC-led Alliance and who fit the labels you have used, among other criteria. For example, in paragraph 8.8 of Blade Nzimande’s Political Report to the 13th SACP Congress, he says the following, with regards to Cosatu and Numsa:
"........there is a small, but lingering, phenomenon in the trade union movement that of wanting to deliberately cause strain and divide the labour movement from the SACP and the ANC. We must intensify ideological work to expose and defeat this phenomenon within the ranks of COSATU and the progressive trade union movement."
Speaking specifically to Numsa, the SACP 13th Congress Political Report emphatically says, in paragraph 8.7:
"We all know that enemies of the working class will always attempt to drive a wedge between communists and the labour movement. We must protect this relationship with all we have."
Thus as the self-anointed Official Chief Ideologist of the SACP (ideological annihilator?), we understand you Jeremy to be simply doing your job - that of isolating, defeating and destroying those people your formation has officially declared war against, in the Alliance. Vavi and I, and Numsa, are top on that list and you have begun with your usual style of "comradely engagement", of creating nice boxes and attaching labels in which comrades are "classified" in order for them to be first properly identified as the "enemies of the working class" so thatthey can then be "isolated and defeated".
Having labelled the box where I sit, "in his red shorts", to be a "pseudo-Marxist", "pseudo-militant" box, a box of "underlying opportunists", you skilfully give Cde Zwelinzima Vavi a stiff "jab in the ribs". You say my response to the Mail and Guardian was "perfectly cut and dry". In true style, you begin with your colourful extremes: "In one corner, wearing blue shorts, is the State supporting the ruling class (=the capitalists). In the other corner, wearing red shorts is Cde Vavi representing the working class". And so, you proceed to savage me for my "confusion", "logical" and "ideological" confusions. Later, in your letter, towards the end, you get around to clarify: "Let’s be clear", what you, Marxist Pontiff of South Africa, consider to be what "as Marxists" we should consider to be "a more accurate and constructive position" on the State. Then you talk about "trajectories" and "configurations", fine, I will come to that.
The point is that you dedicate space to explain why it is "pseudo" and "ideologically inconsistent" for me to put the State "in one corner" with the ruling class. You skilfully avoid explaining the "other corner", where Cde Vavi is "perfectly cut and dry" located with the working class. I guess Cde Vavi "is not monolithic" too. I guess Cde Vavi is not "a shapeless amoeba, nor a pure labour bureaucrat, floating in a classless vacuum". I guess, "As Marxists we have a responsibility to always discern and act upon the main class trajectories, the diverse class tendencies and contradictions at play within Cde Vavi". I guess "we need to analyse how certain configurations in Cde Vavi might be more favourable to one or another class. We need to figure out how popular mobilisation can alter the class balance of forces outside and within Cde Vavi". Have I got it right, Mr Pope, Sir? Or am I just as helplessly persisting in my "ideologically confusion", peddling "un-dialectical metaphysics", engaged in "reductionist economism" as you say? I cannot help myself but speculate, because you skilfully left this gaping hole in your letter.
NUMSA takes great exception to efforts by anyone or any organisation, at isolating any of its leaders at all levels of the organisation, from the organisation, especially if such "sophistricated" manoeuvres are aimed at destroying our leaders. We also take great exception when our leaders are isolated, at the level of the Federation, in order to liquidate them by destroying the confidence of the workers in them. That is what you are doing, Jeremy, leaving unsaid things about Cde Vavi and his commitment to the working class.
Now, to isolate me, the individual, from me the General Secretary of NUMSA as you do, in your Open Letter, can only be for very dubious and un-comradely reasons: you seek to isolate me from the organisation and leadership collective I belong to for obvious purposes - to destroy me. In the prosecution of our official duties, kindly be informed that NUMSA will defend all its leaders and members to their last drop of blood, if need be. You cannot fool us with your tricks, and we will not allow you to divide and weaken us. Remember what Cde Zwelinzima Vavi said in the SACP Congress: Unite Us, Don’t Divide Us! Or perhaps all you could read from Cde Vavi’s speech were "class trajectories" and "configurations"? You, perhaps, I guess, imagined yourself "acting upon Cde Vavi" as he stood there, on the podium, tall as he is, ploughing line by line carefully, reading his modest "workerist" and "anti-majoritarian" speech to the Party Congress?
It is hard to engage in any meaningful ideological exchange with you Jeremy because you disdain to reveal your real positions, clearly. We have known you Jeremy, over many years, to be a man who rarely clearly articulates his position on anything. If you happen sometimes to find yourself having to "come clean", your style is to construct grotesque extremes and to then take the "more nuanced", "intellectually sophistricated", "ideologically clear", middle road, basically on anything. Example? On the matter of NUMSA’s defence of Comrade Vavi in the Mail and Guardian as articulated by myself, as the General Secretary of NUMSA, would it not have been better first for you, Jeremy, to have stated your position on the matter of the attacks on Cde Vavi so soon after the Cosatu Congress, in which Vavi was elected unopposed? What happened to "defending democratic spaces and processes within our organisations?" No Jeremy, stop making us fools.
Why do you Jeremy, not offer us your views, clearly, on why Cde Vavi is under attack in an organisation that has just returned him unopposed in a Congress? Put differently, why do you Jeremy not defend the General Secretary of Cosatu? Why Jeremy why, do you choose to attack the defence I offered on behalf of NUMSA for Cde Vavi? What problem(s) do you have with Cde Vavi, come on, just tell us. We will tell him, of course. Is it because inside Cde Vavi there are "trajectories" and "configurations", or are you still "discerning" the currents that are hitting him before "acting upon Cde Vavi/COSATU (=working class)"? Tell us, what’s your issue with cde ZV?
A Bag Full of Wedges and Marikana
After reading your letter, I thought that perhaps, you were munching on rotten wedges while you were writing it. Your letter shows traces of at least three wedges: a) a wedge you are driving inside COSATU, b) a wedge you are driving inside the working class, and c) a wedge you are trying to drive inside Numsa by isolating, delegitimising and demonising myself, thus you hope, effectively causing Numsa members to lose confidence in me, and then proceed to remove me from Numsa leadership!
Regarding the first wedge, it relates to NUM and NUMSA. As is your liberal poetic bent, but quite insidiously, you liberally litter your open letter with such delegitimizing accusations against NUMSA as being "un-dialectical", practicing "pseudo-Marxism", using "pseudo-militant rhetoric", using "reductionist economism", steeped in "vulgar economism", "un-dialectical metaphysics", and ultimately belonging to a "vigilante union" and quite divisively you say "lacking any expression of sympathy for or solidarity with its sister affiliate the NUM".
Your Open Letter, seeks to polarise and divide COSATU by painting NUMSA "in one corner" as celebrating and benefiting from the challenges of its sister union, the NUM, which sits in "the other corner". I find this to be too cheap, very vulgar and therefore, disgusting! Why are you, Jeremy, insisting that NUMSA specifically, should have expressed solidarity with the NUM in its CC Statement? What about other COSATU affiliates and the structures of the broad mass democratic movement? True to your style, you prepared a corner in which you seek to paint NUMSA and to pit us against all other Cosatu affiliates generally and the NUM in particular. Not only that, you seek to send a message to all the structures of our broad movement, as the foremost Marxist Pontiff sitting in the top leadership structure of our Alliance and Vanguard Party, to ideologise on our behalf through your "intellectual work", and to thereafter point at NUMSA, "here lies the enemy of the working class, within".
Well before the Marikana State Massacre, on 7 August 2012 NUMSA said this in a press statement: "The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) sends its deepest condolences to our allies, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and to the families of workers who have lost their lives. Whatever their grievances, NUMSA does not condone the use of violence by workers to pursue and advance their demands."
Further, in the Statement "Numsa Statement in Solidarity with NUM - SATAWU - COSATU" - published in the "Press Releases" By Numsa General Secretary, Irvin Jim 11 Oct 12, we said the following:
"In the face of the intransigent stance taken by the bosses in the transport industry and by the mining oligarchy, NUMSA calls on all its members to start debating solidarity action in support of workers in the mining industry and the transport sector. If these legitimate and genuine demands of SATAWU in the transport sector, and NUM and COSATU in the mining sector are not met, we might be left with no option but to embark on solidarity strike action. This is a view we will be taking to the COSATU CEC scheduled for next week Monday. NUMSA calls on the mining oligarchy to accept that their stance is understood for what it is: they are union bashers; their actions are meant to undermine COSATU and NUM, and above all to blackmail poor workers and force them into silence, refusing them the right to express their rejection of inferior wages. It is within this context that NUMSA takes a very firm view that the bosses must be compelled to withdraw their mass dismissal of workers. They must not be allowed to replace these workers with contract labour."
NUMSA has issued a warning to strike in solidarity with the NUM. Jeremy you lie, you brazenly lie that we are not sympathetic to NUM, simply because we did not expressly include such a message in our September 2012 CC statement. You have not just appointed yourself a NUM Sympathy Recorder for nothing, where NUMSA is concerned - including by shamelessly lying that NUMSA takes pleasure in the troubles of the NUM and consciously benefits from this by recruiting in sectors in which the NUM also organise.
NUMSA will pursue the ongoing internal Cosatu processes to amicably resolve the matter of boundaries between the NUM and itself and we refuses to be bullied into a false, anti-working class position by anyone, including you, Jeremy.
We are left with no option but to ask the question: why are you so hell bent on isolating, demonising and destroying NUMSA and myself? Why are you, Jeremy, so pathologically obsessed with everything NUMSA says or does? The answer is actually very simple: NUMSA refuses to be banished into focusing purely and narrowly on the immediate bread and butter issues of the working class but it has also openly called for the return to the SACP of all its key leaders. This irks you to no end.
In Numsa we continue to subscribe to the wisdom of Joe Slovo when he properly defined and characterized the role of a trade union from a Marxist-Leninist position. For those in the national liberation movement who continue to be irritated by Cosatu's outspokenness on all matters afflicting the working class, the wise words of Joe Slovo must be like a bell around the neck of a cat;
"A trade union is the prime mass organisation of the working class. To fulfil its purpose, it must be as broad as possible and fight to maintain its legal status. It must attempt, in the first place, to unite, on an industrial basis, all workers (at whatever level of political consciousness) who understand the elementary need to come together and defend and advance their economic conditions. It cannot demand more as a condition of membership. But because the state and its political and repressive apparatus is an instrument of the dominant economic classes, it is impossible for trade unions in any part of the world to keep out of the broader political conflict.
Especially in our country, where racist domination and capitalist exploitation are two sides of the same coin, it is even clearer that a trade union cannot stand aside from the liberation struggle. Indeed, the trade union movement is the most important mass contingent of the working class. Its organised involvement in struggle, both as an independent force and as part of the broad liberation alliance, undoubtedly reinforces the dominant role of the workers as a class. In addition, trade unions' and workers' experience of struggle in unions provide the most fertile field in which to school masses of workers in socialist understanding and political consciousness."
In this context, Jeremy, you deliberately distort and vulgarise NUMSA for its refusal to be confined to bread and butter issues in the workplace. No trade union or labour federation can ever expect to replace the necessary vanguard role of a revolutionary working class party which the CPSA and SACP were established for. But NUMSA refuses to be mum on policies that represent a frontal attack on the working class. We were not mum on GEAR, even as you welcomed and supported it; we cannot be mum now.
Regarding the second wedge, I must say that in the case of violence on the mines I sadly note that the SACP has behaved rather well below our expectations of even a progressive left union - by not elevating the unity of the working class above everything else. In the September 2012 CC Statement, NUMSA says this, about the strategic importance of unity among ALL the working class today, in the face of the vicious onslaught by capital, as the world system of capitalism plunges from one crisis into another:
"An important lesson from the Marikana massacre for the working class is that unity of the organised working class is sacrosanct. Further, we all must do whatever it takes to ensure that we constantly promote that unity."
It is my understanding that in any situation in which the capitalist bosses create conditions for the working class to fight and kill each other, and the state police then join in to murder the working class, it is the revolutionary duty of every class conscious worker and progressive working class organisation to explain the true causes of the violence among the working class, and to educate them to understand that they are killing each other on behalf of the bosses. Throwing around labels such as "vigilantes", "criminals", and using words such as "crack down", assists the bosses more than any other class. It hides the complicity of the mine bosses, in this instance, and their role in fermenting divisions among the working class.
Thus unity of the entire working class, regardless of the formations they may belong to, becomes an overriding imperative. I thought that it is this perspective that informs Marxists and Communists to oppose bourgeois wars - it is the working class who are made to fight the wars on battle fields for the capitalists, while the capitalists actually count their profits from the blood of the working class. In the immediate vicinity of the violence on the Platinum Belt and Marikana specifically, NUMSA knows that it was its revolutionary duty to contribute to ending the violence among the working class, no matter what trade union they belonged to.
In the recent past, NUMSA has suffered the insult of being told that we are not a political formation but a trade union, by the SACP. Obviously, one of the reasons for such irrelevant reminders is that while a trade union of necessity represents its members, the SACP, for example, must always represent the broadest interests of the entire working class, not just COSATU members. The SACP is duty-bound to play its Communist revolutionary vanguard role even among reactionary trade unions. I therefore find it puzzling, after years of political education and practical experience in working class struggles, that a communist would come and tell us that when workers are killing each other, we should join in and kill "the vigilantes".
I do not see anything wrong in calling for overall working class unity against bosses, and at the same time providing support to our sister unions. This is an overriding principle that, no matter how hot the moment, we cannot suspend. We do this type of thing every time in NEDLAC, we have a labour caucus, where we agree to agree and agree to disagree with other labour Federations. We always strive to work together and where we differ, we do not "kill each other" for the bosses. We remain united, on one side of the Chamber, with the bosses on the other side. So, that is what I expected from you Jeremy, an acknowledgement, of the need for overall working class unity, against the mining bosses, in Marikana. I am sure NUMSA will continue to resist this wedge.
Our slogan always is: "Workers of the World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose, But Your Chains"! Every Communist knows this slogan; it is in the Communist Manifesto of 1848.
Our slogan is not: "COSATU Unions Unite Against the Other Unions, Who Are Vigilantes, You Have Something To Lose, Subscriptions!" This is the slogan you are pushing us to adopt, surreptitiously, and we refuse! Why?
The State and Comrade Wayile
I am shocked at your inability Jeremy Cronin, 1st Deputy General Secretary of the SACP, to clearly articulate what you think the state is, in general, and what the South African state is, in particular, in your Open Letter to me. As far as I can recall, Marxism long buried the matter of the origins, history and place of the state in human society. While we, at NUMSA, recognise that our knowledge of the actual forms of the state today must always also be informed by a serious study of actual states in their organic and dialectical developments, the following are the basic elements of the understanding of the class content of the state that we hold: the state is a historic product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms, the state is a special body of armed men and women - the police, army, securitate, intelligence and so on, the state always is an instrument for the exploitation of the oppressed class, the state as we know it today with the destruction of its class base shall wither away, and of course the bourgeois state is incapable of being superseded without a violent revolution.
Clearly we seem to have gotten it all wrong! His "Marxist" Grace Pope Jeremy The First has not declared what the state is. But he pontificates that the South African state is not "a bourgeois-democratic dictatorship" (How can it be? You’re in it). "The state is not a shapeless amoeba" [How can it be? You give it shape, you’re in it]. In fact, you instruct us: "As Marxists we have a responsibility to discern and act upon the main class trajectories, the diverse class tendencies and contradictions at play within the state, across its various sectors, spheres, departments, and specific policy programmes. We need to analyse how certain state configurations might be more favourable to one or another class. We need to figure out how popular mobilisation can alter the class balance of forces outside and within the state".
So here is this thing, the state, which is not shapeless like an amoeba, but it has these various "configurations", exhibits "class trajectories" and "diverse class tendencies". This thing is not "cut and dry" it is "integrated and wet", like an "amoeba" but the thing is that, it has "configurations", it is not "shapeless", it is not like an amoeba. The thing, finally, is just complex, too complex for ME and the NUMSA CC to understand.
Lenin says this about people like you Jeremy: "In falsifying Marxism in opportunist fashion, the substitution of eclecticism for dialectics is the easiest way of deceiving the masses; it gives an illusory satisfaction; it seems to take into account all sides of the process, all tendencies of development, all the conflicting influences, and so forth, whereas in reality it presents no integral and revolutionary conception of the process of social development at all". That is your attitude to the state Jeremy, according to Lenin.
Look at this thing, Jeremy, the state, picture it in your hands. It is not an instrument of bourgeois dictatorship [because you’re in it]; it is not "cut and dry" [Cde Wayile is in it, too]. You say that what we have to do, "as Marxist", is to "discern and act upon the main class trajectories, the diverse class tendencies and contradictions at play within the state". Seemingly, as Lenin said 96 years ago, you want us to "take into account all sides of the process [state], all tendencies of development [diverse class tendencies] and all conflicting influences [contradictions at play]". No Jeremy why do you take us to before 96 years back? Lenin calls this trick of yours "eclecticism, an unprincipled, or sophistic selection made arbitrarily (or to please the powers that be)".
You want to feel a sense of "Marxist sophistication", way above the rest of the "cut and dry" stuff I and the NUMSA CC can only reach. Once again, as usual, you create your grotesque extremes. On the "one corner" is myself with my "un-dialectical metaphysics, cut and dry bourgeois dictatorship type of state" view, on the "other corner", is the view that "the state is a shapeless amoeba". Then after your gymnastics about logic, ideological confusions and stuff, you "clarify" us with your usual "nuanced middle road", the state has "class trajectories", it has "diverse class tendencies", it has "contradictions" within it. Our task, is just to manipulate these contradictions, "discern and act upon" all these complex things. To you this state thing is like a jig-saw puzzle, some clever game at which the working class can outwit the bourgeoisie, like you are doing now, at Department of Public Works, having applied your strategy and tactics at the Department of Transport, with e-toll success?
Contrary to your "other corner", where you put me in my "red shorts", here is a "piece of reductionist economism" that may come to you, from me, as no surprise, to you: "We are in favour of a democratic republic as the best form of state for the proletariat under capitalism; but we have no right to forget that wage slavery is the lot of the people even in the most democratic bourgeois republic. Furthermore, every state is a "special force for the suppression" of the oppressed class. Consequently, every state is not "free and not a "people's state." Marx and Engels explained this repeatedly to their party comrades in the seventies" [Lenin, 1917].
You isolate an aspect of the state [e.g. Cde Wayile, former leader of NUMSA], to illustrate some real or imagined "complexity" of the state to imply that the essential features of any state as "a special organization of force...an organization of violence for the suppression of some class", dissolves or becomes blurred! By so doing you want to fool us, the workers, so as to blunt our working class revolutionary understanding of the state. You want, as usual, to send us to sleep! I, during the interview with the Mail and Guardian and the Numsa September CC 2012 Statement, articulated what we know to be a Marxist-Leninist understanding of the South African state both as an instrument for the exploitation of the oppressed classes and the state as a special body of armed men and women, notwithstanding the fact that the state performs other functions in defence of the exploiting classes. As Cde Jessie Duarte so caustically reminded metalworkers, the state has to deliver sewerage plants, you know.
Numsa, in its CC Statement goes even further and identifies the dominant system of capitalist accumulation in which the South African State is rooted - the Minerals/Energy/Finance Complex, and its social base - the white complex and its colonial subjects - Black people in general and Africans in particular. There is nothing remotely "vulgar economic", "un-dialectical metaphysics" in this. Numsa articulates its understanding of the South African state as evolving within "Colonialism of a Special Type".
This is what the SACP said about the origins and character of the South African state, in 1989:
"The South African capitalist state did not emerge as a result of an internal popular anti-feudal revolution. It was imposed from above and from without. From its birth through to the present, South African capitalism has depended heavily on the imperialist centres. Capital from Europe financed the opening of the mines. It was the colonial state that provided the resources to build the basic infrastructure - railways, roads, harbours, posts and telegraphs. It was an imperial army of occupation that created the conditions for political unification. And it was within a colonial setting that the emerging South African capitalist class entrenched and extended the racially exclusive system to increase its opportunities for profit. The racial division of labour, the battery of racist laws and political exclusiveness guaranteed this. From these origins a pattern of domination, which arose in the period of external colonialism, was carried over into the newly-formed Union of South Africa. From its origins to the present, this form of domination has been maintained under changing conditions and by varying mechanisms. In all essential respects, however, the colonial status of the black majority has remained in place. Therefore we characterise our society as colonialism of a special type."
At Numsa, as the September CC Statement so eloquently captures, we have maintained that some reforms of the colonial capitalist state have, since 1994 been implemented, including the adoption of, arguably, one of the most liberal-bourgeois democratic constitutions in the world today. However, this has not changed the basic capitalist and colonial character of the South African state. We are quite happy to learn from you, Pope Jeremy The First, whether this understanding is false, and why.
The Numsa 2012 September CC Statement is very fluent about the need to radically implement the Freedom Charter in full as the only basis for destroying Colonialism of a Special Type in South Africa post 1994, and locates its demand for ownership and control of South Africa’s wealth including the mines, well within the framework of the Freedom Charter.
Pope Jeremy The First, kindly point to the paragraph in the Numsa 2012 September CC that talks about the nationalisation of the mines in the crude manner you accuse us of and we will gladly email you a copy of the Freedom Charter!
Until 2007, we seemed to think you in fact participated with us in struggling against the neoliberal policies of the ANC, which were best codified in the 1996 GEAR policy. As a second leader of a Communist Party, are you telling us that between 2009 and now the South African state has ceased to be a bourgeois-state with a very liberal constitution? You tell us that these "class trajectories" of yours have now emerged, "the diverse class tendencies" are now palpable, and the "contradictions within the state" are of such content and form that it is no longer "constructive and accurate" to refer to the South African state as "an organ of bourgeois dictatorship"? Why, because you, Pope Jeremy The First, are the only one in the entire democratic movement, who is skilled in manipulating contradictions within the state, you are skilled to "act upon class trajectories" and to discern "diverse class tendencies". The state is no longer "cut and dry", because you’re in it, with Cde Wayile?
Apparently before 2009, those comrades who were in the state were fools. They failed to "analyse how certain state configurations might be more favourable to one or another class". Now you’re in it, and you are showing us, as we speak, how to do Marxism inside a colonial, liberal-democratic, capitalist state, as you meticulously proceed with your duties at the Departments of Transport and Public Works.
The South African state today is one of the most brutal and backward capitalist state the system of world capitalism has ever manufactured. The opulence of the bourgeoisie, local and foreign, starkly coexists with black working class squalor. Colonial and imperialist domination continues in our country, concealed under the cover of the "most liberal constitution" in the world. South Africa has become the most unequal place on Earth, with mass poverty and widespread unemployment, limited to blacks and not whites. The social conditions of the mass of the working class are gruelling to say the least. Inferior education, health, housing, sanitation, and violent crime - all combine to make life unbearable for the majority of the South African working class and rural population. The social crisis in this country still finds expression in the black working class. And which class is responsible for this? Wrong question: it presupposes a "cut and dry" answer. From your "constructive and accurate position" on the state, it is clear that the working class might as well be responsible for this situation just as much as the bourgeoisie is, because now, nothing is "cut and dry".
That such cruel conditions of existence afflict largely the Black and African working class, Black and African rural populations, African youth and women while the white population and a tiny Black middle class are affluent is further testimony of the colonial character of the South African economy, and its state, actually. The September 2012 Numsa CC statement accurately captures this reality, without taking anything away from the bourgeois-democratic reforms to the state since 1994. Today, Jeremy, almost two decades after the "1994 democratic miracle" in all essential respects, however, the colonial status of the black majority has remained in place. Therefore we continue to characterise our society as colonialism of a special type. Notwithstanding all the improvements the Black and African working class have seen since 1994, we challenge you to refute the statement above!
We at Numsa are quite happy to show you that in fact, in some crucial respects, imperialist penetration and the conditions of the Black and African working class have worsened, and rather dramatically!
We refuse to be boxed into your extremes Jeremy, and we regard your extensions of the grotesquely extreme views you claim are ours, your so-called "logical" conclusions, to be dishonest. To try to conceal knowledge of the fact that the South African state is an instrument of class rule is to advance the interest of the oppressor class. We urge the working class to actively participate in the bourgeois-democratic state; our understanding has always been that any Marxist, let alone Communist class conscious worker in a capitalist state must always think and act in ways that grow the power of the working class.
We thus have no problem in appreciating the revolutionary roles and responsibilities of Marxists and Communists in a capitalist government and its institutions - to advance at all material times the interests of the working class and to expose the limitations and contradictions of the system, not to defend such a state! Not to conceal the real reason for the existence of the state, its class character and its role in class society.
You see "an ideological inconsistency", I don’t. Cde Wayile was, indeed, a leader of NUMSA, but we never forgot to remind him that he "was managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie", and he perfectly understood this, and agreed with us. What is the point? The point is not to "occupy opposition benches as a matter of principle", one of your grotesque extremisms. Rather the point is to win a majority in a bourgeois state and to use that majority to "make inroads into private property" as Engels said, in his "Principles of Communism". Yes, we seek to use the majority in a bourgeois state to attack bourgeois property, and not to come up with obfuscating "trajectories", "diverse class tendencies" and "contradictions", all mere sophistrications that are aimed solely at sedating and numbing us in order to sustain colonialism and imperialism in our country. That is why we see no inconsistency to call constantly for the full implementation of the Freedom Charter by this bourgeois state, until the point is reached where the working class realises for itself, that this state is incapable of taking us forward without simultaneously destroying it and constituting the working class as a ruling class on a different structural basis.
Your dishonest "logical extensions", such as the statement: "but hang on, if the current state and government are inherently condemned to be the organs of bourgeois dictatorship, then (if we are to bother with elections at all) shouldn’t we be occupying opposition benches as a matter of principle until socialism arrives, even if we have an electoral majority?", seek to push us into adopting ridiculous and irrational positions. We refuse!
Only a fool will be taken in by your tricks, Jeremy. Yes, the current state (why separate government from state?), like any other capitalist state, is an organ of bourgeois dictatorship. But we refuse your dishonest logical extensions. Read the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin at least, you will find that all of them urged workers to campaign for elections on their own, independent platforms, alongside bourgeois-democrats, for positions in a bourgeois state. The sole aim must be to compel the bourgeois state to attack private property, to push to the limit the bourgeois state, to the point where it becomes clear to even the most backward sections of the working class, that this celebrated "bourgeois-democratic state", is completely incapable of meeting proletarian demands. What are you doing in the state Jeremy, in the Department of Public Works, analysing "trajectories" and "certain state configurations", "acting upon diverse class tendencies", marvelling at the "contradictions within the state"?
There is nothing that you have "acted upon so far", which clearly tests the limits of South African colonial bourgeois-democracy. Nothing, you gave us e-tolls, and now you dish out the NDP, which you lifted from the DA. I see absolutely nothing beneficial to the working class by your presence in the current state. Nothing at all!
A matter that has always bogged our mind at NUMSA is in fact, what exactly is the revolutionary independent programme of Marxists and Communists serving in the post-1994 bourgeois state? To which class and how do they account?
NUMSA stands firm, on feet of steel, by its position of how it characterised the post 1994 South African state in its September 2012 CC Statement. In that Statement we accurately identified both the economic base and the social forces that constitute the post 1994 South African state. You have not refuted these facts in any way, in your Open Letter.
The Communists
Shall we, Dear Pontiff Jeremy The First, remind each other of the most cardinal of revolutionary responsibilities of Communists everywhere and at all times?
The Communist Manifesto, 1848, says this:
"In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.
In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.
Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."
Surely it is not too much to ask that you, in your quest to self-anoint yourself Marxist Pontif Jeremy The First of South African Marxism and Communism, you strictly and at all times remain within the bounds set by the Communist Manifesto, as quoted above?
Resolution of the property question leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat, Your Grace Pontiff Jeremy The First, is as important to Marxists and Communists as is the matter of the resurrection of Jesus Christ to real Christians!
In your letter you have done everything possible to confuse, conceal and underplay the significance of the property and class question. I and the Numsa September 2012 CC Statement on the other hand, have both consistently revealed both the property question and the class question at play in the South African state and society.
The ANCYL and its leadership then, which you also savage very brutally in your Open Letter, raised the property question and proposed a consistently democratic demand of nationalisation, which, instead of developing and pushing forward, you Jeremy ridiculed it (bling-bling!). This is very un-Communist Manifesto, Jeremy!
The ANCYL actually propose and demand the nationalisation of the mines and other strategic sectors of the economy, and the expropriation of land, ALL without compensation. They clearly explained that it is foolish for anyone to expect the Liberation Movement to compensate thieves. Explain to us how this would advance the failed interests of mining BEE types and their white cloners.
Real communists know that communists are unifiers of the working class and never carry themselves as a separate factional political party situated outside the working class movement. In this regard, the Communist Manifesto says:
"The Communists are distinguished from the other working class parties by this only:
1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.
2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole".
You Jeremy, even fail to "bring to the front the common interests of the COSATU-organised proletariat". As far as I knew, your role is always to assist all unions, especially COSATU unions, to play a leadership role, in uniting workers, all workers. This unity, is already there, we see it daily in the case of public sector strikes, the transport workers' strike, etc. where COSATU unions engage in mass action alongside other unions, that must be encouraged. But you are killing working class unity with your wedges!
Help us, Your Grace!
Finally, of course, rather than toying around with Numsa statements and media interviews, Jeremy, you should provide us, as is your urgent revolutionary duty today, a Marxist analysis and justification for the SACP’s endorsement of the NDP. We are tired of "endorsements of broad thrusts", give us details, why the NDP is more revolutionary than GEAR this time around. Further, we ask, that you should explain to us how the NDP advances the Freedom Charter. You must confirm to us that the SACP now thinks the NDP is quite a shorter route to socialism.
NUMSA has published its rejection of the NDP, and its reasons for doing so. What are your views?
At NUMSA we gladly and openly refuse to take responsibility for a capitalist oriented NDR!
I reiterate; your Open Letter has nothing to do with advancing comradely engagements, nor was it intended to defend internal democratic spaces inside our respective organisations. Rather, it is an extremely toxic Open Letter intended to isolate, demonise, delegitimise and ultimately destroy Comrades Vavi and me, and hopefully, the revolutionary militancy of Numsa too.
Still, I must say, after everything you said, tucked right near the end, is this quite correct view, with which I wholly agree with you:
"And, yes, a party that calls itself communist is not therefore by self-proclaimed definition necessarily a vanguard of the working class."
Yes, Pontiff we agree, but you never cease to amaze me with your tricks even to the end. You demand "logical consistencies" from others, and not from yourself? This comment of yours comes after you said:
"A trade union (particularly a vigilante union) is not guaranteed to be advancing the interests of the working class".
Instead of providing a parallel for "a party that calls itself communist", you play with words. Kindly do also take the trouble to correctly fill in the missing word where there are dots:
"A communist party (particularly a................party) is not guaranteed to be advancing the interests of the working class".
And so, everything goes, contrary to your assertions, in relation to the State! Everything now looks like an "amoeba", except in your case this amoeba has shapes, "configurations".
All organisations are reactionary and revolutionary at the same time. Nothing is "cut and dry". Everybody, like Cde Vavi, is characterised by "class trajectories" and "diverse class tendencies", and "contradictions", and so carries in their chest a revolutionary side and a reactionary side, including you, Pope Jeremy I. The lie is in the truth and truth is in the lie!
That is your type of dialectics, in contradistinction from me and the NUMSA CC’s "un-dialectical metaphysics, cut and dry piece of reductionist economism which inevitably leads to an unbending fundamentalism in strategy and a pragmatic opportunism in tactics". Wow, Jeremy!!
Trust us, Pontiff Jeremy, Numsa honestly and desperately wants the SACP to behave and be the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary vanguard of the working class! Will you help us, please?
Numsa shall never be praise singers, court jesters, and will forever be wary of palace politics. Our revolutionary character and history forbids us to do so.
Yours in the Struggle for a classless and truly free world!
Irvin Jim,
General Secretary.
Selective use of revolutionary phrases is a counter revolutionary tendency. Our revolutionary document the freedom charter, like the National Economic Plan, is not a dogma, but a guiding tool of our struggles
A response to Cde Irvin Jim
By Justice Piitso
The Secretary General of NUMSA Cde Ivin Jim correctly so in his problematic attempt to argue against the theoretical frame work of our National Development Plan, borrows the most profound and revolutionary phrase from the leader of the world communist movement Cde Vladimir Lenin, which reads as thus"
People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. Champions of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realise that every old institution, however barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is kept going by the forces of certain ruling classes.
And there is only one way of smashing the resistance of those classes, and that is to find, in the very society which surrounds us, the forces which can-and, owing to their social position, must-constitute the power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new, and to enlighten and organise those forces for the struggle."
I am confident that my our fellow comrade is borrowing this revolutionary phrase from our revered leader, Cde Vladimir Lenin, mindful of the true facts that selective application of revolutionary phrases is counter revolutionary, mindful that revolutionaries are always open for persuasion and by their character are never dogmatic or rigid in their thinking.
I am equally confident that my fellow comrade in arms is mindful of the most important fact that a revolution can only be led by the most advanced elements in society, leaders schooled in the correct theoretical foundations of the Marxist Leninist theory.
I am sure that my fellow comrade in arms is mindful of the fact that a revolution cannot be led by leaders who are either left wing or right wing opportunists. The holier than thou attitude and the tendency to masquerade ourselves to be more revolutionary than others is an act of counter revolution. Revolutionaries are the most humbled leaders of the people.
Dialectical and historical materialism teaches us that to be a revolutionary is not a permanent feature. The most fundamental reason why we should from time to time ascertain ourselves whether our world theoretical outlook is still consistent with the character and posture of our national democratic revolution.
What is even more important is wether the venomous revolutionary phrasing and vulgarisms you have decided to direct against your own national liberation movement is in consistent with the true traditions and culture of our revolutionary principle of democratic centralism.
Our national democratic revolution is confronted by two main counter revolutionary tendencies which are, left wing and right wing opportunism. Left wing or ultra left opportunism is a tendency that elevates tactical choices to principles and strategic objectives. It is opposed to compromises in principle and is vehemently rigid in changing tactics in the ebb and flow of our struggles.
The second tendency of right wing opportunism deals with strategic and principled issues as if they are tactical choices. In our own specific conditions we see this tendency deviating from its own historic mission and presenting itself as the authentic leader of our national democratic revolution. In essence the two tendencies will from time to time converge as they derive common theoretical perspectives.
The secretary general of NUMSA has publicly accused the collective leadership of our movement and some specific individual comrades such as Trevor Manuel of a treacherous crime of selling our revolution to the Democratic Alliance. The charge sheet is presented to our liberation movement after a historic period of over hundred years of an unbroken record of heroic of struggles against imperialism and colonialism of a special type. We are being accused of being a copy cat of the Democratic Alliance. In other words our liberation movement has sold our national democratic revolution to the highest bidder.
At the same pace the Democratic Alliance is accusing our national liberation movement of the challenges of poverty, disease and underdevelopment perpetuated by the centuries old legacy of imperialist oppression and exploitation. The DA has suddenly appeared in a new form of being the leader of the struggles of the people of our country. In this instance my dear comrade in arms has joined the same chorus with the DA to undermine the collective effort of our people to advance the objectives of our national Democratic revolution.
Lenin had always warned the working class movement against the monstrous tendencies of revolutionary phrasing. He said the following profound words as we repeat ourselves about revolutionary phrasing" we must fight against the revolutionary phrase, we have to fight it, we absolutely must fight it, so that at some future time people will not say of us the bitter truth that a revolutionary phrase about revolutionary war ruined the revolution'.
He further said that ' such architects of counter revolution are their own profound masters in the attempt to misrepresent the preface and theory of our party.
Questions must be raised sharply and things given their proper names, the danger being that otherwise irreparable harm may be done to the party and the revolution".
It is therefore correct on the contrary that people may have been the foolish victims of deception and self deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interest of some class or other behind all moral, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. Left wing opportunism will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realize that every old institution, however barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is kept going by the forces of the ruling class.
Our revolutionary leader of the world working class movement Cde Vladimir Lenin had warned us of the dangers of the tendency to sing revolutionary slogans irrespective of their relevance to the concrete material conditions of a particular historical period. The most outstanding and fundamental feature that has distinguished our liberation movement from the rest, has been our consistent traditions on the application of Marxist Leninist theory as our revolutionary weapon of analysis.
He has always warned of the dangers that whoever who wants to reach socialism by any other path than that of political democracy, would inevitably arrive at the conclusions that are absurd and reactionary from both the political and economic perspectives. He would say that if any worker ask us at the appropriate moment why we should not go ahead and carry out our maximum programme, we should answer by pointing out how far from socialism the masses of the democratically elected people still are, how unorganized the proletariat still are and how undeveloped the class antagonism still are.
He would say that party cadres should organise hundreds of thousands of workers all over Russia, get the millions to symphasise with their programme, and that they should try to carry this task without confining to high sounding but hollow anarchist phrases and they would see at once the achievements of the party.
In his articulation of the conditions that made possible the victory of the Russian revolution he would say the following!!
First, by the class consciousness of the proletariat vanguard and by its devotion to the revolution, by its tenacity, self sacrifice and heroism.
Second, by its ability to link up, maintain the closest contact, merge in certain measure with the broadest masses of the working people, primarily with the proletariat, but also with the non proletariat masses of the working people.
Thirdly, by the correctness of the political leadership exercised by the vanguard, the correctness of its political strategy and tactics, provided the broad masses have seen, from their own experience that they are correct.
He would further say that without these, conditions and discipline in a revolutionary party really capable of being the party of the most advanced class, whose mission is to overthrow the bourgeoisie and transform the whole of society, cannot be achieved. He would say that without these conditions, all attempts to establish discipline inevitably fall and we end up phrase mongering and clowning. On the other hand these conditions cannot emerge at once, they are created only by prolonged effort and had won experience.
He would say that it is not enough to have only the leadership of the proletariat, but the decisive phase of the revolution involves all social classes and must engage millions and tens of millions of people. All the classes hostile to us have became sufficiently entangled, are sufficiently at loggerheads with each other, have sufficiently weakened themselves in a struggle which is beyond its strength, and all the vacillating and unstable, intermediate elements have exposed themselves in the eyes of the people.
Lenin would emphasise that History as a whole, and the history of revolutions in particular, is always richer in content, more varied, more multiform, more lively and ingenious than is imagined by even the best parties, the most class-conscious vanguards of the most advanced classes. Two very important practical conclusions follow from this: first, that in order to accomplish its task the revolutionary class must be able to master all forms or aspects of social activity without exception and secondly that the revolutionary class must be prepared for the most rapid and brusque replacement of one form by another.
In his theoretical works and concretely in his practical activity, he started from the principle that the forms of transition to socialism are dependent on the concrete balance of international and internal class forces, on the degree of organization of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the level of the economic structure and on the political traditions and forms of the organizations.
In 1908 the left Bolsheviks were expelled from the party for stubbornly refusing to understand the necessity of participating in the most reactionary parliament. Amongst them were the most splendid revolutionaries who were subsequently commendable members of the Communist party. They based their arguments based on the experiences of the 1905 boycott.
When the Tsar proclaimed the convocation of a consultative parliament in 1905, the Bolsheviks called for its boycott and which was supported by every teeth of all opposition parties that eventually led to the parliament swept by the revolution. The boycott proved correct at the time not because non participation in reactionary parliament is correct in general, but because the objective situation was accurately appraised. The conditions were such that they were leading to a rapid development of the mass strikes first into political strikes, then into a revolutionary strikes, and finally into an uprising.
Here the difference was that time the struggle was centered around a question as to wether the convocation of the first representative assembly should be left to the Tsar, or an attempt should be made to wrest the convocation from the old regime. When there was not, and could not be, any certainty that the objective situation was of a similar kind, and when there was no certainty of a similar trend and the same rate of development, the boycott was no longer correct.
The Bolsheviks boycott of the 1905 parliament enriched the revolutionary proletariat with the highly valuable political experience and showed that, when legal and illegal parliamentary and non parliamentary forms of struggles are combined, it is sometimes useful and even essential to reject parliamentary forms. It would however be highly erroneous to apply the same experience blindly,imitatively, and uncritically to other conditions and other situations.
The Bolshevik boycott of parliament in 1906 was a mistake although a minor and easily remediable one, the boycott of 1907, 1908 and the subsequent years was a most serious error and difficult to remedy, because, on the other hand, a very very rapid rise of the revolutionary tide and its conversion into an uprising was not expected, and, on the other hand, the entire historical situation attendant upon the renovation of the bourgeois monarchy called for legal and illegal activities being combined.
Today, when we look back at this fully completed historical period, whose connection with subsequent periods has now become quite clear, it becomes most obvious that in 1908-14 the Bolsheviks could not have preserved the core of the revolutionary party of the proletariat, had they not upheld, in a most strenuous struggle, the viewpoint that it was obligatory to combine legal and illegal forms of struggle, and that it was obligatory to participate even in a most reactionary parliament and in a number of other institutions hemmed in by reactionary laws.
Lenin would further say that to reject compromises not on principle, to reject the permissibility of compromises in general, no matter of what kind, is childishness, which it is difficult even to consider seriously. A political leader who desires to be useful to the revolutionary proletariat must be able to distinguish concrete cases of compromises that are inexcusable and are an expression of opportunism and treachery.
He must direct all the force of criticism, the full intensity of merciless exposure and relentless war, against these concrete compromises, and not allow the past masters of "practical" socialism and the parliamentary Jesuits to dodge and wriggle out of responsibility by means of disquisitions on "compromises in general. It is in this way that the "leaders,, of the British trade unions, as well as of the Fabian society and the "Independent" Labour Party, dodge responsibility for the treachery they have perpetrated' for having made a compromise that is really tantamount to the worst kind of opportunism, treachery and betrayal.
There are different kinds of compromises. One must be able to analyse the situation and the concrete conditions of each compromise, or of each variety of compromise. One must learn to distinguish between a man who has given up his money and fire-arms to bandits so as to lessen the evil they can do and to facilitate their capture and execution, and a man who gives his money and fire-arms to bandits so as to share in the loot.
In politics this is by no means always as elementary as it is in this childishly simple example. However, anyone who is out to think up for the workers some kind of recipe that will provide them with cut-and-dried solutions for all contingencies, or promises that the policy of the revolutionary proletariat will never come up against difficult or complex situations, is simply a charlatan.
He would say that the left wing opportunists would not grasp this idea, for they do not know the ABC of the laws of development of commodity and capitalist production. They fail to see that even the complete success of a peasant insurrection, even the redistribution of the whole of the land in favour of the peasants and in accordance with their desires will not destroy capitalism at all, but will, on the contrary, give an impetus to its development and hasten the class disintegration of the peasantry itself.
Marxism teaches the proletarian not to keep aloof from the bourgeois revolution, not to be indifferent to it, not to allow the leadership of the revolution to be assumed by the bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, to take a most energetic part in it, to fight most resolutely for consistent proletar- ian democratism, for the revolution to be carried to its conclusion.
He would say that they could not get out of the bourgeois-democratic boundaries of the Russian revolution, but they could vastly extend these boundaries, and within these boundaries and they should fight for the interests of the proletariat, for its immediate needs and for conditions that will make it possible to prepare its forces for the future complete victory.
The democratic revolution is bourgeois in nature. The slogan of a general redistribution, or land and freedom that is the most widespread slogan of the peasant masses, downtrodden and ignorant, yet passionately yearning for light and happiness—is a bourgeois slogan. But we Marxists should know that there is not, nor can there be, any other path to real freedom for the proletariat and the peasantry, than the path of bourgeois freedom and bourgeois progress. We must not forget that there is not, nor can there be at the present time, any other means of bringing socialism nearer, than complete political liberty, than a democratic republic, than the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.
Whoever now refuses to recognise this slogan of revolutionary-demo- cratic dictatorship, the slogan of a revolutionary army, of a revolutionary government, and of revolutionary peasant committees, either hopelessly fails to understand the tasks of the revolution. Such a leader is unable to define the new and higher tasks evoked by the present situation, or is deceiving the people, betraying the revolution, and misusing the revolutionary slogan.
Consequently, full victory of this peasant movement will not abolish capitalism; but on the contrary, it will create a broader foundation for its development, and will hasten and intensify purely capitalist development. Full victory of the peasant uprising can only create a stronghold for a democratic bourgeois republic, within which a proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie will for the first time develop in its purest form.
It will therefore be in the best interest of our revolutionary alliance and our national democratic revolution that we proceed from the point of view of the correct analysis of the balance of forces. A proper analysis of both the objective and the subjective material conditions we find ourselves in, is a necessary precondition for our correct understanding of both the domestic and international balance of forces. This most relevant and necessary posture will assist us at all turn of events to navigate ourselves through these complex historical periods. The revolution cannot afford to leave its own people behind.
It will therefore be correct and relevant in our analysis of the present domestic and international balance of forces, to depart from the premise that we find ourselves having to advance the cause of our national democratic revolution, in a complex world material circumstances, dominated by a hostile and aggressive capitalists relations. The collapse of the Soviet block and the subsequent Communist states in the Eastern Europe was a major setback to the world working class movement. Therefore the tactical maneuvers we chose, must not threaten the unity and cohesion of our national democratic revolution.
Lenin proclaimed patriotism as" one of the deepest feelings firmly rooted in the hearts of people for hundreds and thousands of years from the moment their separate fatherlands began to exist. It has been one of the greatest, one can say, exceptional difficulties of our proletarian revolution that it had to pass through a period of sharpest conflict with patriotism during the time of the Brest-Litovsk peace.
It is a great, one may say, exceptionally favourable circumstance for the socialist revolution in the present situation that patriotism, "one of the feelings most deeply rooted in people”, leans on and needs socialism in the struggle against imperialism for national interests. In this way patriotism and democracy have become mighty weapons of the workers' class in present times and, step by step, they bring masses of new allies to the workers' class".
One is still convince that to stand on the roof of the house and bark at your own liberation movement, like when a jackal barks at the moon for the whole night for no reason, is an act tantamount to a counter revolution. An act that seeks to reverse back the decisive gains of our national democratic revolution.
My response to you is not an attempt to rebuke your honest and revolutionary views about the adopted National Development Plan. In itself is it not a dogma, but the most comprehensive plan that seeks to guide in a more systematic way, our developmental agenda for years to come. Rigorous debates around what kind of a state do we want is an ongoing process, guided by concrete material conditions of the time.
Selective application of revolutionary phrases is a counter revolutionary tendency. Our revolutionary document the freedom charter, like the National Development Plan, is not a dogma, but a guiding tool of our struggles. Revolutionaries are the most hopeful about the future, the future of the suffering people of the world. We will march with our people on our forward uninterrupted march to socialism.
Justice Piitso is the former Ambassador to Cuba and the former provincial secretary writing this article on his personal capacity.
The DA unashamedly lays false claims on the struggle history and heritage of the ANC
By Khaya Magaxa
The recent decision by the DA to declare this year the Nelson Mandela year smacks of hypocrisy. The DA (through its predecessor the Democratic Party) wants to associate itself with the legacy of Nelson Mandela and therefore lay claim to the history of our struggle over many years to defeat apartheid which they supported. This is purely naked opportunism! The DA and its predecessors have never objected when Mandela was declared a terrorist and incarcerated to Robben Island.
The DA never objected to the banning of the National Liberation Movements and now in peace times they want to honour these heroes and heroines who were brutally murdered, hanged, jailed and exiled by a regime they supported and benefited from its policies.
They collaborated, supported and benefited from the unjust laws, policies and opportunities afforded by the racist and fascist apartheid regime and now wants to sooth its conscience. They are haunted by their guilty conscience.
The DA's anti-transformation agenda does not favor the Black majority
The DA wants people to forget its contributory role in oppressing the Black majority. Their pretenses are betrayed by their policies which continue to preserve and protect the same privileges they enjoyed since the introduction of colonial and apartheid regimes in this country. The DA opposes Affirmative Action, Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment and Land Reform.
Their opposition to these progressive policies mean that the DA wants the status quo to remain unchanged. The DA is a racist organization with a racist agenda which favors the minority bourgeoisie white middle class interests. The DA, through its deceitful public relations stunt, on Human Rights day launched its renaming exercise claiming to pursue "efforts to build an inclusive city that promotes reconciliation and redress". This is a complete nonsense! They believe the Nazi dictum that "repeating a lie often enough makes it truth". As the SACP, we will not stop exposing these falsehoods.
Their lies about commitment to inclusivity, reconciliation and redress are contradicted by their opposition to implementation of Affirmative Action policies and Land Restitution to redress imbalances of the past. This exposes their dishonesty and hypocrisy. The City of Cape Town makes no attempts at inclusivity in practise as it continues to invest inordinate proportion of public funds towards White middle class suburbia. It's development paradigm continues to reinforce apartheid spatial distortion for instance moving people to concentration camp-like settlements such as Blikisdorp.
Once again the DA exposes its attitude towards the poor Black majority on a daily basis through its policy priorities and expenditure patterns. for example the choice to spend millions, in the interest of maintaining the interests of bourgeois white middle class, on the Bus Rapid Transit road infrastructure and bus Service (my city) from Table View to Cape Town while thousands of residents from Khayelitsha, Mitchells' Plein, Nyanga, Gugulethu, Langa, Bishop Lavis, Lavender Hill etc desperately need safe and reliable public transport. These working class communities were located far from economic and employment opportunities through the segregationist apartheid spatial distortion and their interests continue to be marginalized by the DA. Working class communities still remain excluded from the economic opportunities under the DA.
The renaming of streets after stalwarts of the anti-apartheid struggle
The DA started exposing its inherent dishonesty and hypocrisy when it opportunistically declared that it has adopted the freedom charter before the 2009 elections many years after the freedom charter was adopted by the real Congress of the People in Kliptown. Whilst revolutionaries risked and sacrificed their lives in order to realize the vision of the freedom charter the DA was enjoying luxuries and privileges afforded by the apartheid regime which they still protect to date.
Now the DA under Zille wants to appropriate and manipulate the legacy of the fallen heroes and heroins of the liberation struggle, for political gain. This shows the moral bankruptcy of the Helen Zille. In fact it is criminal to appropriate products of the ANC without consent. The SACP rejects this calculated political ploy to clear the guilty conscience of the DA.
The renaming of the streets after anti-apartheid struggle heroes such as Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Robert Sobukwe, Dulcy Septmber Steve Biko and Imam Haron among others seeks to steal their legacy and sacrifices for political mileage. The DA has opportunistically and carefully selected minor streets and avoided main important places of historical significance and streets in the city centre such as Adderley, Strand and Plein streets. The DA also reduces African leaders such as Steve Biko as leaders of Africans only, the case in point is renaming NY1 in Gugulethu as Steve Biko. They do all this knowing that they will soon lose power and want to make it difficult for the ANC to change it. A careful look at the DA's record shows that they opposed name changes in Tshwane, eThekwini and many other areas.
If the DA is genuine it must prove itself and support the SACP's campaign to rename the Cape Town International Airport after Chris Hani. Failure to do so will confirm out belief that this renaming has no significance other than merely to insult our heroes in order to gain political support.
Taking Responsibility of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR)
By Mncedisi Nobala
The SACP in the Western Cape Province will be going to the 7th provincial congress in June 2013. The 6th provincial congress was held on June 2010 with a theme “Reclaiming political power in the Western Cape to advance working class hegemony”. This theme was informed by the fact that the ANC in the province lost the City of Cape Town in 2006 and the province in 2009 to the Democratic Alliance. The question people outside the province are asking is whether the policies of the DA are appealing to the people of the Western Cape than those of the ANC. My answer to this question is a definite No.
My view is that the people of the Western Cape are voicing their anger and frustration towards the ANC in the province. This anger and frustration has nothing to do with the ANC but something to do with the political infighting in the alliance and the deepening of factionalism in the province. This has led to the ANC losing elections in the Coloured Areas and decline of votes for the ANC in the African Areas. The DA has won the 2009 and 2011 elections with more than 50%. Someone outside the province might think that the DA as an organization has grown in the townships. There is no evidence to prove that the DA membership in the townships has grown and that is why it does not want to make its membership figures public.
When the SACP in the province went to the 6th provincial congress in June 2010 it was less than a year before the 2011 local government elections and it will be less than a year when it goes to the 7th provincial congress before the 2014 general national/provincial elections. It is common knowledge that the ANC led alliance lost many municipal councils in 2011 to the DA. Reclaiming political power in the Western Cape to advance working class hegemony is still relevant as we approach next year’s general elections. We need to ask ourselves as the alliance in the province as to how do we reclaim political power from the DA.
My suggestions are that:
- Let us build strong alliance structures from branch to provincial level. We must build a campaigning alliance which must go beyond alliance summits with a programme of action. It was something refreshing that the provincial ANC secretary addressed the provincial council early this month after many years of this not happening.
My concern though is COSATU in the province because there seem to be a lukewarm relationship with the party and this must come to an end.
- Let us make sure that our deployees in council account to the public by holding monthly reporting meeting with their constituencies.
- Let us make sure that all ANC regional conferences which are due late this year or early next year are completed before November 2013 so that all energy will be directed at campaigning for the ANC victory. At least the ANC PEC is addressing this matter of early conferences.
- Let the alliance partners rally behind the programme of action of the provincial ANC which will run up until next general elections.
These are some of the things that I think if implemented can get the ANC led alliance reclaim political power in the province. Let all SACP members in their branches, district and the province build an active campaigning party as it always does in all elections. The battles for the 2014 general elections have started as it was witnessed by the turn out of the people on the Human Rights Day last week. The people came out not because of the Human Rights Day only but because they wanted to see their president which shows the hunger they have for the ANC led province.
This is very possible if we fight the tendency of the DA to bring back the divide and rule of the Coloured and African people against each other as done by the apartheid government. We will not forget what the Premier who is the DA national leader said about calling Eastern Cape children refugees. We will also not forget what she said about people from the Eastern Cape and foreign nationals during the farm workers strike last year.
Let the SACP members in the province take responsibility for the National Democratic Revolution as instructed by the 13th National Congress of the SACP. It is part of taking responsibility for the NDR if we reclaim political power in the Western Cape so that we can advance the working class hegemony. I am fully aware that wining this province does not rest only on SACP members but let us play our part as both members of the SACP and that of the ANC. Let us stop factional infights within the alliance and focus on uniting the working class. We have lost the metro, the province and many municipalities but we are still fighting for the power we do not have.
We owe it to the people of the Western Cape that we bring back the ANC led government.
Mncedisi Nobala is the deputy chairperson of the ANC AB Xuma branch and deputy secretary of the Boland district (Western Cape) and he is writing in his personal capacity.
