Back to main newsSouth African Communist Party 12th congress
Mon 13 Aug 2007
Author: John HaylettJOHN HAYLETT gives an insight into a South African Communist Party congress that defied the right-wing media pundits' gloom.
THE local billionaire-owned media was agreed that nothing good could come from it.
The newspapers implied that it would be a cross between a preordained motorway pile-up and a family funeral punch-up that would sever relations for the foreseeable future.
As last month's 12th congress of the South African Communist Party drew near, the headlines accentuated the mood of crisis.
"A party under pressure," "SACP: the cracks widen" and "Dexter: SACP is quasi-Stalinist" - the latter based on a document issued widely by national treasurer Phil Dexter, for which his party membership was suspended for 12 months for breaching internal discussion procedures.
There was also media publicity, bordering on incitement, given to a proposal from the Gauteng provincial organisation to commit the party leadership to contest the 2009 general election separately from the African National Congress, ending the time-tested revolutionary alliance of the ANC, SACP and Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).
But those who expected a besieged, divided and despondent congress would have been disabused of these illusions at the onset of the first session.
Nearly 1,800 delegates, plus up to 500 guests and visitors, packed out the sports hall of Port Elizabeth's Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
The delegates were a sea of red, wearing specially produced T-shirts, fleeces, woolly hats, baseball hats and raincoats and bursting regularly into revolutionary songs.
Delegations often entered the hall in full song, toyi-toying their way through the seats in a show of enthusiasm that is unlikely ever to become the norm at British labour movement gatherings.
The naturally raised decibel level meant that calls for order from the chair were substituted by a roar of "Amandla" (The power), which requires a response of "Ngawethu" (is ours), effectively truncating the singing and dancing and returning everyone to congress mode.
Nor was the enthusiasm dimmed by general secretary Blade Nzimande's announcement that party membership had risen from 19,385 at the 11th congress in 2002 to 51,874 in May.
He pointed out that many provinces had had stunning recruitment results, with the proportion of women comrades increased from 10 per cent to 25 per cent.
Plenary sessions were largely dedicated to set-piece presentations from party leaders, delegates' questions, contributions from the Chinese and Cuban communist parties and solidarity speeches from ANC fraternal representatives, secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe and deputy president Jacob Zuma.
President Thabo Mbeki had accepted an invitation to address congress but cried off because of an overseas commitment.
The real work of congress was carried out in a series of commissions on the SACP and the state, the SACP and communities, the SACP and the economy, the SACP and the workplace, the SACP and ideological struggles and the SACP and international struggles.
Each commission was facilitated by a chair, presenter and a quaintly named "scribe," whose job it was to report back to full congress, where, following further discussion, commission reports and recommendations were largely carried by consensus.
Voting was by provincial delegation rather than individual, as a result of which it was possible to discern that seven provinces, plus the Young Communist League, which had 30 delegates, were largely supportive of the party leadership, with Gauteng and Limpopo critical, albeit from different political directions.
As far as the commercial media was concerned, every congress decision was part of a subtext of who should be elected ANC president in December, dividing delegates and leading personalities into pro-Zuma or pro-Mbeki.
In this way, Nzimande is dubbed pro-Zuma, as is new national chairman Gwede Mantashe, who was previously general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers.
Mantashe replaced Charles Nqakula, who is safety and security minister in the Mbeki government and who was, nevertheless, elected to the new 30-member central committee.
COSATU president Willie Madisha, who is largely out of step with the party leadership and with other COSATU office bearers, stood down from the committee, with mineworkers' union president Senzeni Zokwana climbing aboard.
Outgoing deputy chairwoman Dipuo Mvelase also stood down and was replaced by ANC MP Ncumisa Kondlo, while Phumulo Masualle took over as national treasurer.
Both Masualle and Kondlo had previously been sacked from their provincial government posts by Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile, allegedly on orders from ANC national HQ, for being "hardline communists."
Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi did not stand for re-election to the CC, while Intelligence Minister and former special ops commander of the ANC armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Ronnie Kasrils stood but, surprisingly, missed out.
Senior party members suggested that the incoming CC would use its co-option powers to include Kasrils and that this would certainly meet with Nzimande's approval.
While the party rejects the media characterisation of leading members, there is no doubt that there are sharp criticisms of those it describes as "deployees" - party members who have taken on national government responsibilities.
These criticisms were sharpened during the recent massive public-service and metalworkers' strikes, which the SACP backed fully, while its members in government were hostile, citing cabinet collective responsibility.
Nzimande accepted that the party had to be self-critical about its own failure to clear with party members their political responsibilities before accepting ministerial office.
But he made clear the ground rules that have to apply.
"If you have an allegiance to the SACP, you cannot act in ways that are detrimental to the party, working people or the poor," he declared.
His deputy Jeremy Cronin was, if anything, more forthright, telling deployees that it's fine to be an ANC MP or ANC councillor, "but you can't forget that you are a communist. If you are not a communist, then leave this party.
"You can't privatise state-owned enterprises or abuse workers and their rights. You have options. Step down as a minister."
One who didn't get the opportunity to stand down is ex-deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, who was sacked in dubious circumstances last week.
Her sacking followed the resumption of duties, following sick leave for a liver transplant, by controversial Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang,
Tshabalala-Msimang is known as Dr Beetroot for her advice to counter HIV/Aids with beetroot, garlic and lemons rather than anti-retroviral drugs, which she suggests may be poisonous.
In her absence, Madlala-Routledge, who was elected to the SACP central committee at last month's congress, pioneered the adoption of a new strategic plan to indicate that South Africa was treating the epidemic seriously at last.
There was an immediate improvement in the rate at which anti-retroviral treatment was delivered and more vigorous promotion of prevention advice.
There was also a marked increase in testing, which was helped by Madlala-Routledge and her husband publicly having themselves tested at a clinic in a remote rural area.
Her so far unexplained sacking follows a possibly random set of circumstances that could also be viewed as a pattern.
One of the songs sung by the youth at the congress was directed at President Mbeki, asking him why Chris Hani died. Hani was the hugely popular SACP general secretary and MK leader who was seen as a potential successor of 
Nelson Mandela but was assassinated by pro-apartheid killers in 1993.
The SACP is backing a reopening of the Hani inquest, since, as Nzimande says, "we cannot state categorically what happened to our general secretary."
Cronin says: "It is important that we reach finality. We have to reopen the inquest and the murderers who were seeking to plunge our country into chaos must not be released. They must stay in jail where they belong."
The party's determination to discover whether there was a wider plot behind the Hani murder will have been strengthened by the recent revelation of a document entitled "Special Browse\Mole," which purports to be an intelligence report suggesting a lurid plot involving certain African governments hostile to President Mbeki working with the SACP and ANC military veterans to bring Zuma to power.
Bizarre as the document is, it mirrors similar documents produced in the 1980s and early 1990s by the apartheid security services.
One such, released shortly before the Hani murder, accused him of organising a renegade army of disaffected MK troops and others to frustrate a negotiated solution.
Hot on the heels of this document has been an allegation, in which both Phil Dexter and Willie Madisha are involved, accusing Nzimande of embezzling 500,000 rand that was supposedly donated to the party by businessman Charles Modise in 2002.
The story has been ridiculed by the party, which has declared its confidence in its general secretary, but it indicates the scale of dirty tricks being perpetrated against the party and its comrades in COSATU and the ANC.
This succession of events puts in context Nzimande's comments at congress on the role of the media.
"There have been many attempts to derail our congress, to defocus us and to defame our leaders. Not just lies but lies, lies, lies.
"Our party was never made by the media but by the struggles of the workers and the poor in this country. It won't be unmade by the media. Over the next four months, it will be necessary to remain focused.
"We are a force. They can't ignore us."
John Haylett attended the SACP congress on behalf of the Communist Party of Britain. In a further article, he will outline the SACP approach to South Africa's national democratic revolution.
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