SACP Address to NUMSA National Congress by Jeremy Cronin

20 September, 2004

It is 6 months since the ANC/SACP/COSATU alliance scored a landslide election victory. The ripples of that victory continue to impact on our institutions of representative democracy, with 330 local councillors from other parties crossing the floor to the ANC.

Immediately after the April elections, the SACP made two basic points, which we believe need repeating:

1. We won the election on a PROGRESSIVE worker-friendly MANIFESTO, strongly influenced by the resolutions of the Alliance Ekurhuleni Summit, the resolutions of the Growth and Development Summit of last year, and by the struggles of working people and the poor. The key commitments of our Manifesto were and are:

• Forging a strong public sector, capable of playing an active developmental and transformational role. Amongst other things the manifesto and our government budget commit us to using the public and parastatal sector to spearhead, with a massive R100 billion, a major infrastructural development programme.
• Upholding and consolidating worker rights. In the face of the opposition parties' campaigns for a more "flexible" labour market, the ANC-alliance re-affirmed its commitment to the many worker rights achieved over the past ten years;
• Major land reform – our election manifesto envisages land reform transfers to impact upon 30% of existing commercial farming land, over the coming ten years;
• Work creation and job retention – the ANC has identified jobs as the most critical of all challenges. There are a variety of programmatic proposals in our manifesto, including an expanded public works programme; the fostering of labour-intensive methods by the public and private sectors; more coherent skills training; and learnerships for young workers;
• Empowering the poor, through fostering sustainable livelihoods, households and communities.

2. Even more important than our manifesto commitments, was the WAY in which we won our election campaign. The ANC-alliance didn’t win these elections in a board-room, or on a golf-course. This was an election fought and won, over many months, in hostels and townships, in factory canteens, in squatter camps and rural homesteads.

In its election campaign, our alliance re-affirmed that the core social motive forces of our revolution are the workers and the poor of this country. In his election victory speech our President, cde Thabo Mbeki, captured it accurately. "The ANC", he said, "is a movement of the poor."

Why am I recalling these issues now?

You know better than I that you can win a battle one day, and then have the fruits of victory snatched away from you in the weeks and months that follow. After all, this is exactly what happens every day on the capitalist-owned and controlled shop-floor. YOU do the work, but the fruits of your work are then taken away from you, AND (what is more) the power that this appropriated surplus gives to capitalists is then used AGAINST you, your own alienated labour is used as a weapon against you. The bosses tell you they have to retrench, or casualise, or disinvest. What gives them the power to do this? The surplus they have taken away from you in the first place!

And this is also the trick the capitalists want to use when it comes to elections and our new democracy in SA.

Just days after the April election results were announced, Alistair Sparks called on the incoming ANC-government to speed up privatisation and reduce corporate taxes. "Some of these steps may be unpopular with the ANC’s alliance partners, but with his huge majority, Mbeki can afford to offend them…" A hopeful Business Day editorial said that the massive majority "will allow the ANC to face down a challenge from the left."

In other words, having won a popular mandate from the workers and the poor of this country, the ANC could now ignore the wishes of that electorate, and listen to those who never voted for it.

Well, we have a very different message:

With his huge majority President Mbeki can afford to "offend" the CEO of Anglo American. With the great majority of South Africa’s people behind him Cde Mbeki can say to the big capitalists – our new democracy has been very good for you, but what have you done? You have retrenched a million workers, you have casualised hundreds of thousands more. You have disinvested billions out of our country. You have bad-mouthed our society and its government (having been very quiet during the apartheid years).

With his huge majority President Mbeki can afford to say these things – we are not saying that he should pick a fight for the sake of it. We are not saying he should be demagogic, or populist. But we are saying that the truth must be told. And practical steps must be taken to rein in the unilateral power the capitalists always try to exert over our economy and society.

With our huge popular majority, Minister of Finance, Cde Trevor Manuel can afford to attack (as he did last week) the gluttony of the rich in our country, the elite in the private sector and in the parastatals.

"In 2003 (cde Manuel told the Annual Convention of the Association of Black Accountants of SA) Ian Cockerill, CEO of Gold Fields, received a 63% salary increase, Steve Ross of Edcon 36%, First Rand’s Laurie Dippenaar 25%. This is in the context of inflation of about 6% and a decline in corporate profits in most sectors of the economy. Salaries in the financial services sector lead the pack. Is this sustainable? Is this conducive to long-term growth in our economy?…this wanton drive to get rich quickly must come to an end if we are to have sustainable economic growth."

The need for working class vigilance and mobilisation

But, of course, the working class in our country did not vote in the ANC in order to then sit back as spectators applauding (or booing) the performance of MPs, Ministers and MECs.

Over the last months, the organised working class in our country has shown that it is ready in its own right to claim, in action, in mobilisation, its April 2004 election. In the auto sector, in the mining sector, in the transport sector, in the telecommunications sector, last week in the clothing and textile sector, organised formations of the working class have been showing that they are vigilant and militant.

On Thursday around 1 million public sector workers showed that they are not going to wait with arms folded. This was the largest strike in many years. Its importance should not be measured by the difference between 6% and 6,2%, but by what preceded the strike and by what must follow. There are many important features of the action that should be noted:

• with COSATU affiliates in the forefront, we succeeded in unifying the widest range of unions and professional associations;
• this was the most non-racial strike in SA’s history – white school-teachers toyi-toying (not very well, but never mind), white school students petitioning on behalf of their teachers;
• in previous years, public opinion has been mobilised against striking public sector workers – this time government, generally, did not generally try this tactic. In fact, government ministers agreed that key sectors of the public sector are not adequately remunerated. There was overwhelming public, including media sympathy for the strike action.
• this is an indication that the widest range of South Africans are beginning to understand, in practice, that an effective public sector is critical for the well-being of our society. And that an effective public sector requires decently remunerated, well-motivated, well-trained professionals.

So, was the Thursday strike action, and the negotiations outcome, a victory for the working class over the government? I prefer to think of it in the words of one striking worker quoted in a newspaper:

"This is our government, and sometimes it needs guidance."

Public sector workers have given government guidance.

And just as public sector workers have given government guidance, so must the working class in general give guidance to our society. Workers must take responsibility for much more than their wages, working conditions and benefits. Workers must take responsibility for the strategic trajectory of our society. If YOU don’t, other class forces will.

What then are the strategic tasks of the working class?

Before, trying to answer that question, a pause for some brief analysis.

Our multi-class liberation movement

Recently the SACP has been trying to analyse the interesting (complex) roller-coaster of intra-alliance dynamics in the last several years. It is no secret that from 1996, in particular, with the adoption of GEAR, alliance relations went through some very intense and strained moments. In 2002 in particular matters seemed to come to a head.

I don’t want to go back into any of this recent history here.

What I want to do today is to reflect on the important turnaround that has begun to happen since the end of 2002 (unevenly, there are still complexities – as there no doubt always will be in a real, living alliance).

What has been behind the significant improvement? Obviously 2003 was a pre-election year, and that helped. Our joint and successful election campaign also built unity in action. But the improved convergence between the leading cadre of the ANC and its alliance partners is surely more than about elections – as the past six months would seem to indicate.

The ANC-liberation movement is, quite correctly, a multi-class democratic movement, uniting all of those committed to transforming our country into a non-racial, non-sexist and united democracy. The key strata and classes within the broad ANC are:

• the urban and rural poor – the unemployed, those involved in the most marginal informal activities. For these millions, the priority questions are very basic things – a job, shelter, food, access to health-care and water, some land. It is about being able to build sustainable livelihoods and households.
• then, not absolutely distinct of course from the poorest of the poor – is the formal sector working class – your organised base. Here the questions are sometimes similar to those of the poorest of the poor, but also around job security, a living wage, a decent social wage. Marxists have always considered the formal sector working class as the key revolutionary motive force – not because it is the most destitute (it isn’t), but because the capitalist system exploits but also organises and concentrates this social force. In other words, workers have both the motivation and the potential capacity to spear-head thorough-going transformation.

These two major strata of our society – the workers and the poor – overwhelmingly African and black – are the great mass base of our movement. This mass base is not all one monolithic thing, there are many real and potential divisions. But fundamentally this is the bed-rock of our movement.

• a third key social category – less because of numbers, and more because of its influence and location – is a cadre now of several tens of thousands of full-time political and organisational professionals (Ministers, MECs, MPs, councillors, general secretaries and secretary generals, deputy directors-general, chief directors, etc) – located in government departments, in legislatures, in municipalities, in parastatals, in the management of hospitals and schools, in trade union offices and in trade union investment companies. For this stratum (of which I am part), the concerns and vocabulary tend to be about "governance", and "best practice", about "modernising" and "developing" and "delivery". The overwhelming majority (but perhaps not all) of comrades in these positions are hard-working, honest and professional.
• a fourth key social category – again much less (in this case much, much less) because of its numbers, and more because of its actual and potential influence within our movement – are the emerged black capitalists (the BEE-llionaires) and the aspirant black capitalists (the wanna-BEEs). These strata also belong to our movement.

What happened from around 1996 was that, under the influence and pressure of big (white) capital, a bloc within the leadership of our movement was united around a majority in the third and fourth categories. (Of course, there were – and are - many subjective overlaps between the third and fourth categories, with individuals using public office as a platform to launch into the private sector) The unifying project was to create an investor-friendly climate that would produce (we were told, and many comrades believed) six percent annual growth, job creation, and revenues that would enable us to meet our social delivery targets. Part of the project, as conceived by established white capital, was to marginalize the SACP and COSATU.

That project now lies in tatters. The Washington Consensus, from which it drew its inspiration, is increasingly rejected globally, and even in Washington itself. Our own government’s "Towards a 10-year Review" has shown that unemployment and inequality are at crisis levels in our society, and that where delivery has happened, it has been led by the public sector and not the private.

Above all, the BEE-llionaires and the wanna-BEEs are showing themselves to be increasingly incapable of providing any kind of strategic leadership. They spend most of their time competing against each other. There are few examples of actual productive contribution to developing our economy and its productivity. The ANC leadership now has several BEE-llionaires, and yet the ANC has never been so indebted. And the general scramble for personal wealth accumulation is wreaking havoc in our organisations at all levels.

It is against this background that recent comments of cde Trevor Manuel, and President Mbeki, and former President Mandela should be understood. There is a growing impatience and frustration from the side of the leading ANC/government political cadre with big capital (both old and new, white and black). This impatience is not a necessarily an embrace of socialism or a rejection of capitalism as such, but it does mark a growing commitment to asserting the leading role of the democratic public sector.

This is a very positive development, presenting the possibilities for a different kind of project that is constituted around an ANC bloc of the workers and poor together with the leading cadre of our democratic state.

Strategic tasks of the working class

From this analysis the key strategic tasks of the working class emerge. They are:

• the working class must consolidate its unity with the democratic state around a concrete programme of action that prioritises job creation, the rolling back poverty and the fostering of a strong and strategic public sector. The resolutions of the GDS, industrial sector summits and industrial sector policies are among the key components of the programme of action. This means an organised working class that does not just adopt defensive postures, but which is prepared to develop strategic perspectives;
• the working class must build solidarity with the poorest of the poor in urban, peri-urban and rural areas. This is why the SACP’s 2004 Red October campaign is targeting one of the most marginal sectors of the working class (farm-workers on the 46,000 white farms), and the most marginal of the poor, landless families (a majority female) in the countryside. We call on organised formations of the working class to support us in this campaign.
• the working class must assume leadership responsibility for all classes and strata of our broad movement – including emerging black capitalists. Rather than treat the BEE-llionaires and the wanna-BEEs with simple contempt or jealousy, we need to put down a clear set of strategic parameters that discipline their accumulation aspirations. If there is going to be private accumulation then the condition for any support of this from the side of our movement must be that it contributes to the TRANSFORMATION of the present accumulation path. Wanna-BEEs must show us how their personal accumulation contributes to job creation, to labour (and not capital) intensity, to buying local, to developing our national market, to skills training, to investment. The working class is not interested in de-racialising capitalism if that is all that is achieved. At the end of the day, who do the BEE-llionaires represent us, or ABSA, or Standard Bank, or SAB Miller? The working class must give "guidance" to the bourgeoisie – the established sections, and especially to the emergent sections, over whom we have greater potential leverage through our movement. This guidance must take many forms – including consumer activism, industrial policy, and achieving a much greater worker strategic control over union investment funds. In all that we do – we must build working class confidence, working class hegemony, we must foster working class solidarity as the dominant value of our society.

In today’s ThisDay, Bobby Godsell (CEO of AngloGold Ashanti) has an interesting article entitled "Black Oppenheimers". It is, in fact, a relatively constructive and thoughtful piece, but, of course, in the end it is informed by a class position. Godsell concludes:

"We need enriched individuals and we need symbols or role models of dramatic success in the black community…"

But who is this "we" that needs these things? Is this "we" us? Does the working class need "enriched" black capitalists? And if so, why? Of course, Godsell’s "we" is Godsell and his white-boys’ capitalist club, his class-mates. THEY need some black capitalists as an alibi, as a distraction. They need some over-empowereds so that they can sell the myth that "anybody can become a capitalist in South Africa."

Godsell then adds:

"I must add that I believe it is racist to revere white Oppenheimers and criticise black Oppenheimers."

That’s true, of course, IF (a big IF) any of us has ever "revered" the white Oppenheimers. But, Bobby Godsell, I can promise you that in our 83 years history, the SACP has never revered the white Oppenheimers. Throughout its decades long struggles, the progressive trade union movement in South Africa has never "revered" the white Oppenheimers. Given our history, it would be racist of us, Bobby Godsell, to now revere black Oppenheimers!!

A few weeks ago, a head-line in a newspaper caught my eye. "Old Mutual Seeks Black Partner". That sounds like one of those Lonely Hearts adverts in the Personals Column. I thought that the majority of South Africans were black? But apparently the Old Mutual has difficulty finding a "black", at least a "suitable" black. Presumably the Old Mutual’s Personal Ad should go on to read: "No previous experience required." In fact, this would be a draw-back, they don’t actually want the partner to think he or she can run the place. "But", the ad would continue "political connections an absolute must."

Six months ago, the workers and poor returned the ANC to parliament with a 70 percent majority. But the capitalists have not given up. In the five years I’ve been in Parliament, I’ve seen COSATU unions frequently, I’ve seen NGOs, I’ve seen members of the public, but I’ve never seen the Old Mutual or Anglo American. They are not interested in our democratic institutions, they are not even interested in the party that wants to be their shop-stewards in the National Assembly – the DA.

They tirelessly seek to shape the agenda of our country by bypassing our democracy – they prefer to go via the strategic business partner, the slice of the action deal. The attitude of the bourgeoisie is: When there is the opportunity to lobby and wheel-and-deal at the golf club or the game lodge, who needs a portfolio committee public hearing, or even an official opposition?

Big capital in our country cannot win democratic elections, their strategy for power is not the ballot, but the pocket…of a targeted layer of cadres in our movement. And this is why the struggle against corruption in our own ranks is not just a moral struggle. It is possibly the most important front of the class struggle in our contemporary South Africa.

We have a democratic parliament. We have a democratic executive. We have trade union rights on a scale that we never enjoyed before. We have the bourgeoisie off-balance strategically. It would be a tragedy if, at this very moment, because of our own lack of vigilance we allowed our people and our members to lose faith in our democratic institutions, in our own formations. And this is the fourth, perhaps the most important, strategic task of the working class:

• to be vigilant about our own organisations and our new democratic institutions. To ensure transparency, honesty and accountability. Above all, we must build the UNITY of our organisations, and of our alliance. Yes, robust internal democracy is important. Contesting positions within our organisations is part and parcel of organisational democracy. But it would be a tragedy if we allowed these contests to overwhelm us, so that we end up neglecting the huge strategic challenges AND possibilities confronting the South African working class at this moment.

The SACP wishes all delegates to this Congress well in your proceedings. We know that you appreciate the responsibilities that rest on your shoulders.

AN INJURY TO ONE, IS AN INJURY TO ALL!