Firm relationship between SACP & COSATU

Blade Nzimande, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party 
(SACP), addressed the recent 8th Congress of the Congress of South African 
Trade Unions (COSATU). Here are edited extracts from his contribution.

This occasion might go down in history as one of the most important 
Congresses in the history of this Federation.

Just seven months before the end of the first decade of our freedom, this 
Congress comes at a time when our revolution stands at the cross-roads. 
Since 1994 there have been many advances for the working class and poor of 
our country, there have also been defeats and persisting crises for workers 
and the poor. One million formal sector jobs have been lost in five years, 
workers have been casualised, household income inequality and mass poverty 
have worsened.

Everyday, on the TV, radio and in the print media, there are multiple signs 
of distress, of creeping bourgeois values, of a sharpening factionalism 
within our own liberation movement. For the past 10 years we have moved 
forward collectively, we have notched up victories, we have made 
significant resource transfers to the poor, but still we remain locked into 
a ravenous, barbaric capitalist accumulation path.

We have to go forward, but we cannot just go forward with hope and good 
intentions. We have to systematically, consciously, militantly rescue our 
national democratic revolution from its present imprisonment within a 
persisting capitalist accumulation path.

Unless the working class leads, working programmatically and in action with 
the mass of the urban and rural poor, unless this is done, the promise of 
1994 will collapse into agendas of narrow self-enrichment, and general 
confusion. The SACP is prepared to work with all potentially patriotic and 
progressive forces. But one thing is clear, the bourgeoisie and the 
emergent bourgeoisies, separately and together, are incapable of charting a 
way out of our persisting crisis of underdevelopment. The working class 
must lead!

Strategic nature of relationship between SACP and COSATU

This is a relationship we need to continue to deliberately foster, deepen 
and consolidate. It is a relationship forged in struggle and must continue 
to be fostered through common struggles.

In the first instance, in order to understand this relationship properly, 
it is important to locate it within the context of what the relationship 
should be between communists and the labour movement. The most definitive 
guideline and approach still remains that enunciated by Lenin in 1900. 
Allow me to quote:

"Social democracy is a combination of the labour movement with socialism. 
Its task is not passively to serve the labour movement at each of its 
separate stages, but to represent the interests of the movement as a whole, 
to point out to this movement its ultimate aims and its political tasks, 
and to protect its political and ideological independence. Isolated from 
Social-Democracy, the labour movement becomes petty and inevitably becomes 
bourgeois: in conducting only the economic struggle, the working class 
loses its political independence; it becomes the tail of other parties and 
runs counter to the great slogan: 'The emancipation of the workers must be 
the task of the workers themselves'.

"In every country there has been a period in which the labour movement 
existed separately from the socialist movement, each going its own road; 
and in every country this state of isolation weakened both the socialist 
movement and the labour movement. Only the combination of socialism with 
the labour movement in each country created a durable basis for both the 
one and the other".

(Lenin Collected Works Vol 4 p 368) (Note: The term "social 
democracy" in this quotation is used because in 1900 when it was written, 
the party that subsequently became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 
was then called the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.)

The sectarian left

The above approach is as relevant today as it was relevant then. The 
enemies of the working class know this, that is why one of their strategies 
will always be an attempt to drive a wedge between communists and the 
labour movement, thus aiming to weaken both and strengthen the capitalist 
character of society.

That is where the highly sectarian left works to the agenda of the 
bourgeoisie when they call for COSATU to split from the Communist Party and 
the Alliance and transform itself into a workers' party. The bourgeoisie 
would love this as it would isolate organised workers from the Party and 
the masses and drive it into a cocoon!

I would like to submit to this Congress that we should consciously see the 
relationship between our two formations as of a strategic nature. The South 
African Communist Party is the only credible political voice of the working 
class, with a proud history of struggle and a clear political theory of the 
National Democratic Revolution (NDR) and its relationship to the struggle 
for socialism.

We have a programmatic perspective grounded in advancing the interests of 
the workers and the poor. COSATU is the largest trade union federation, 
progressive in its orientation, with a proud history of militant struggle 
for the workers and embracing the NDR and the struggle for socialism.

What do we mean when we say that we should see our relationship as a 
strategic relationship? Put simply, the future and fate of South Africa's 
working class lies with this relationship. The struggle for socialism is 
entirely dependent on this relationship. Without understanding the 
strategic nature of this relationship and consciously giving it this 
strategic purpose and thrust, the future of the working class, the NDR and 
indeed socialism is at stake.

Were Lenin writing in South Africa in 2003 he would say that for South 
Africa, the primary strategic relationship for the future of the working 
class lies in deepening and consolidating the strategic relationship 
between the SACP and COSATU.

How should the strategic nature of this relationship manifest itself?

a. The foundation for the strategic nature of this relationship must derive 
from a proper grasp and concrete campaigns around the slogan of Socialism 
is the future, build it now.

b. The public sector as the basis of our growth and development strategies 
and a platform from which to engage private capital.

c. An overarching state-led industrial strategy, driving an accumulation 
regime beneficial to the overwhelming majority of our people.

d. Co-ordinating existing working class campaigns on jobs and poverty 
eradication, transforming the financial sector in favour of the workers and 
the poor, a comprehensive social security system, building a progressive 
working class-led women's movement, fighting against HIV/AIDS and effective 
worker participation in African National Congress and SACP structures.

e. The strategy and tactics of the working class in the NDR and transition 
to socialism must emerge from the programs and the strategic thrust of the 
relationship between our two formations.

To pose our relationship in this way is not to elevate it above that of the 
ANC as the leader of the Alliance. Part of the strategic purpose of our 
relationship is precisely aimed at strengthening the working class bias of 
the ANC as the leader of the Alliance and government.

There is also a dialectical relationship between the strategic nature of 
our two formations and the leading role of the ANC in this period. It is 
only under an ANC-led Alliance, an ANC which safeguards its working class 
bias, that creates the most favourable conditions for a working class-led 
NDR and the struggle for socialism.

Conversely, it is the strategic relationship of the SACP and COSATU that 
provides the locomotive for the NDR and an ANC with a working class bias. 
However what holds together this dialectic and the Alliance as a whole is 
an independent, politically conscious working class capable of acting as a 
motive force.

The key priorities

Within the context of consolidating and deepening the national democratic 
revolution, and the emerging medium term vision for the working class, the 
implementation of the resolutions of the Growth and Development Summit 
(GDS) are an important advance.

They mark an important shift from a growth and development strategy 
premised on privatisation, liberalisation and attraction of Foreign Direct 
Investment as the principal locomotive for a growth path. Instead, they are 
premised on mobilisation of domestic resources from the financial sector, 
domestic investible income, increased investment in infrastructure, 
expanded public works programs and the building of co-operatives to harness 
the energies and economic creativity of the ordinary mass of our people. 
This is a very important shift from previous assumptions.

These policies potentially roll back the notion that there is only one 
corner that has all the wisdom about how to grow and develop our economy, 
and a recognition of the need to mobilise the wisdom and organisational 
muscle of all our people in order to achieve a radically different growth 
path. Most importantly, there is a recognition, even if on paper, of the 
importance of the working class and the resources under its control.

In this way the GDS resolutions provide the most immediate platform to 
struggle for an accumulation regime in favour of the workers and the poor 
by:

a. Convening sectoral summits towards concrete measures for job creation.

b. Building the co-operative movement.

c. Building a progressive savings and credit co-operative movement to fight 
against the high indebtedness of the working class.

d. Struggling for workers' control of retirement funds and deepening the 
struggles in the financial sector.

e. Driving a public works program through infrastructure investment.

f. Development for the benefit of the mass of our people, rather than for 
an elite.

g. Building a caring South African nation based on social solidarity while 
uplifting the majority of our people.

Forward to workers' co-operative bank and worker-controlled retirement 
funds!

The campaign has reached a stage where workers must use their 
organisational and financial muscle to create worker-owned and worker-
controlled financial institutions. We are calling for the formation of 
savings and credit co-operatives as an important step towards a workers' 
co-operative bank, providing savings and affordable credit and other 
services to the workers of our country.

As the working class, we are already controlling billions of rands through 
our societies and retirement funds. Let us ensure worker control of all 
retirement funds as part of defeating the private commercial banks, and 
rolling back business unionism and unilateral control of workers' funds by 
un-elected and unaccountable asset managers.

We call upon all COSATU affiliates to encourage members to form their own 
savings and credit co-operatives as part of this overall offensive to build 
the financial muscle of the working class. We are also calling on this 
COSATU Congress to resolve to build a vibrant, democratic, popular, 
progressive and independent co-operative movement.

The national question

It is important that the working class be in the forefront of the struggles 
to address the national question. The national question cannot be 
effectively addressed unless its class content is properly understood and 
addressed, just as we need to address the national content of the class 
question.

There is a very real danger that as our transition unfolds, emphasis tends 
to be placed on the national question devoid of its class content. It is 
only a politically conscious working class, with independent power that is 
best capable to lead the struggle to address the national question.

In this respect the working class needs to contest and seek to give 
direction to the moral values upon which the emerging new South African 
nation is based. This concretely means rolling back the capitalist market, 
unflinchingly promoting non-racialism and non-sexism, fighting the 
corruption and elitism and the "dog-eat-dog" mentality of capitalism and 
promoting values of social solidarity and uplifting the overwhelming 
majority of our people.

This means the working class being in the forefront of protecting our 
national sovereignty and in the moral regeneration movement.

ANC victory in the 2004 elections

This constitutes the most immediate priority for the working class and the 
national democratic revolution as a whole. Workers of our country in 
general need to ensure an overwhelming majority for the ANC in the 
elections next year. As workers, it is in our deepest interest to return 
the ANC Government overwhelmingly.

The ANC is the best placed organisation to take forward transformation in 
our country, and the only government best capable of addressing the 
interests of the overwhelming majority of our people.

It is also important that as a matter of urgency we ensure that workers 
fully participate in all the ANC election structures. We must also ensure 
that we participate in the drafting of the election manifesto and ensure 
that the interests of workers are prominent.

We need to ensure that we reach out to the millions of workers to ensure 
that they come out and vote.

An important challenge is that as we draw up the ANC election manifesto we 
need to ensure that we begin to draw up a joint Alliance program to make 
sure that the implementation of the manifesto is driven collectively.

This will overcome the problem of tensions that sometimes arise out of the 
interpretation of the implementation of the manifesto. This is also 
important in order to ensure that joint Alliance work does not only happen 
during the election campaign but after it as well.

Let us get down to work to ensure a convincing victory for the ANC next 
year!