23 February 2000
Thank you for the invitation to exchange views on this complex question. The invitation helped me reflect on matters that are now relegated to the back burner. One had to rummage through boxes to retrieve old books gathering dust. This is partly a reflection of the fact that we do not have sufficient debate on fundamental issues.
The General Secretary warned me that this discussion is not meant for a restatement of formal policy positions; but to provoke discussion on the reasons behind the reasons for the current state of affairs. So if I provoke you through my pronouncements, this is with the mandate of the General Secretary.
As we know, the Minister of Finance announces the Budget today. Essentially we should expect that he will continue the trend of government policy to allocate more resources to social and economic services; and relieve the tax burden on citizens to encourage savings and economic growth. The matter of the budget deficit is an interesting one; because if, for instance, the deficit this year is lower than anticipated, do we then push it further down in the coming year – and what will be the policy outlook underpinning such an approach?
While these detailed matters are themselves important, the broader challenge that should be reflected upon is the context of the discourse that has characterised this period. For instance, on the issue of taxation, SACOB understandably argues for relief for the well-off – their focus is on the marginal rate – and they also raise the issue of speedily relaxing foreign exchange controls. At the same time, Prof Raymond Parsons claims to represent structures of civil society that will guide government on how the lottery funds should be allocated. This is not much different from Roelf Meyer’s so-called civil society initiative.
All these examples illustrate one critical issue: that there is a vacuum in discourse and mobilisation on critical social issues. So new forces emerge, seeking to build their legitimacy through initiatives that do not openly and directly oppose government; but they try to set the agenda by appealing to the sentiments of the middle strata and directing the focus of government mainly towards the upper classes.
Because of the weaknesses of the working class and the left, these forces, many of which are to the right of even the World Bank and the IMF, dominate the terrain of debate on some critical matters.
What instead do we hear from the working class and the left? You might complain that this is a problem of reporting: but what we see is a campaign that proceeds from the premise that government is destroying jobs; and that 500 000 jobs have been lost in the past five years. As to whether these statistics are reliable or not, is a debatable point. But the issue is the impression created that on this matter of job creation, the enemy is government.
We don't talk about allocative capital; we don't talk about the difficult problems that the country faces: that even if you succeeded to improve savings, you would still have to wage another campaign to ensure that those savings go to productive investments, rather than just speculation on the Stock Exchange.
It is critical that in our day-to-day communication the left, the working class and the national democratic movement occupy a prominent position in the agenda of discourse. Because often we concentrate on immediate issues; and the fundamental questions facing society are raised by workers’ class adversaries.
I will reflect on some of these issues in the context of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) and pose among others, the question of natural tensions that arise in today’s conduct of struggle. These include the tension between pursuit of employed workers’ immediate interests and those of other motive forces of the NDR; and between on the one hand pursuing socialism by deepening the national democratic revolution, and on the other, a militancy that could undermine the national democratic revolution and therefore the socialist revolution itself.
I refer to socialist revolution because I believe Cosatu's policies have not changed: that you are pursuing this long-term objective.
I will start off by making a distinction between class struggle and pursuit of the socialist revolution. Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto said: "The history of all hitherto existing society is a history of class struggle. Freemen and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted now hidden and now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large or in the common ruin of the contending classes".
Operational phrases that I would like to underline are, "now hidden and now open"; and that this struggle can end up either in the "revolutionary reconstitution of society… or in the common ruin of the contending classes".
We all agree that class struggle is a driver of social change; it's a condition of existence of class society. It can impart consciousness for qualitative revolutionary transformation – but that is not automatic. It depends on external intervention. The fact of being inspired to respond to the call of the social antagonisms in a class society does not automatically transform into revolutionary leadership.
The proletariat can fight for higher wages, better working conditions and so on – all of which are elements of the class struggle – but all these could be thoroughly reformist. For class struggle to truly become revolutionary requires that there should be revolutionary organisation. It requires that there should be a sense of purpose within the class waging that struggle. The working class should be capable intelligently "to push forward all others; and on the other hand theoretically … have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions and the ultimate general result of the proletarian movement" (M&E, Communist Manifesto).
This means that the working class should appreciate the phase in which we are operating, the balance of forces and how to shift it, the alliances it should build and how to give leadership to such alliances.
A struggle that lacks these methodological tools can lead to setbacks in revolutionary social movement. History abounds with examples of this: bad timing that can result in the defeat of revolutionary action; sectarian approaches that can result in the isolation of the most advanced class; crises in transitional periods that can lay the basis for counter-revolution to thrive.
An example in this regard is Chile in the 1970s. There is the role that some big powers played in destabilising the country; but amongst other weaknesses was that the progressive movement sought to lay hold of the old state machinery but did not urgently transform it. As such, that state machinery turned against the revolutionary government.
There was also a problem of pulling together the revolutionary alliance. In his book, "The Revolution Disarmed", Gabriel Smirnow says that as counter-revolution mobilised and destabilised, there was a problem that, within the revolutionary movement including those in government, "the working masses were looked upon as nothing more than reference points, very useful for holding big demonstrations and celebrating anniversaries… [the] workers had remained in the rearguard as a combat force with all the muscles tensed but held in reserve".
The fundamental issue here is not only about continuing mass action. It’s also about a belief that revolutionary consolidation and mobilisation reside merely in big demonstrations – thus avoiding the difficult task of political education and organisational work.
From Smirnow’s book – although his arguments veer in a different direction – a question does arise about the content of programmes and pronouncements that sound advanced but which fail to unite the motive forces of the revolution. This results in the isolation of the working class, with important sectors of the middle class alienated.
Marx and Engels say that class struggle can lead to the common ruin of the contending classes. In the converse, counter-revolutionary movements in countries such as Somalia, Afghanistan and to an extent Angola have pursued a scorched-earth policy resulting, virtually, in the common ruin of those involved in these battles.
It is in this context that we should approach the more specific issue of the national democratic revolution and class struggle in South Africa. Proceeding from the premise that class struggle is a continuing expression of antagonisms in any class society; one should assume that it will continue in South Africa whether anyone likes it or not. Those who believe in socialist revolution will argue that such class struggle, if infused with a revolutionary content, should ultimately lead to the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large.
In elaborating further on capitalist society, Marx and Engels argue that the working class is a class of the future and its struggles are the driving force because: this class is an essential and special product of capitalism; it’s concentrated at the workplace and better organised; it has got no property to defend (and I suppose this applies to all of us here); and it has got no future except pauperisation – in brief, it has nothing to loose but its chains.
Given South Africa's level of development, it’s only natural that the working class had to be and still is the vanguard of the national democratic revolution. Its struggles are the cutting edge of the national struggle.
But then the question arises, what self-interest does the working class pursue in the NDR? What contradictions does the NDR resolve?
In the Strategy and Tactics document of the ANC adopted the Mafikeng Conference, the point is made that the NDR is essentially national and democratic. "We seek to create a social order in which the many positive elements of the market dovetail with the obligations of citizens one to the other". And "we are confident that consistent implementation of [the many principles in the Strategy and Tactics document] "will go a long way in resolving the many basic contradictions of South African society". But we cannot predict all the new challenges that the process of transformation will bring forth, and whether we will be able to deal with them. For instance the creation of this new, democratic society does not eliminate the antagonisms between capital and labour, neither does it eradicate the contradictory interests among the motive forces of the NDR itself.
"Our task as the ANC and the task of the NDR is to eliminate the basic causes of the national grievance wherever and in whatever form they manifest themselves, and to manage the multitude of contradictions within society in the interest of this objective. Indeed, as we succeed in doing so, new social dynamics will play themselves out, redefining the challenges…" of each given phase as well the political alliances and permutations that will arise.
The Strategy and Tactics document goes further to elaborate on who the motive forces are: essentially the African majority, the Coloured and Indian communities, white democrats – in class terms, mainly the range of classes found within the black communities led by the working class. What this means in brief is that a decisive element of the content of the NDR is class contradictions and the struggle to which they gives rise. The working class is the leader of the NDR – it is the most interested in the success of the NDR – because of the actual material benefits that workers derive from it.
The NDR creates better conditions for the struggle of the working class for a better life. In Two Tactics of the Bourgeoisie Democratic Revolution Lenin says that the bourgeois democratic revolution can be more advantageous to the proletariat than the bourgeoisie; and ours is more than just a bourgeoisie democratic revolution.
What then should the proletariat do under South African conditions to ensure that the NDR is more advantageous to itself than its adversaries?
Firstly, since 1994 we had to ensure a smooth transition that does not create fertile ground for counter-revolution as we together delicately negotiated the removal from power of the old classes and strata. Negotiation of that smooth transition which entailed many compromises was revolutionary. It might not have been militant, but it was revolutionary.
Secondly, the working class will have to ensure that it champions the cause of transformation in all centres, be it the army and other security services, the public service, the judiciary, parliament, the instruments of communication and ideological discourse and so on.
Thirdly, the working class has to pursue radical programmes of transformation in the social sector and the economy.
Lastly, the working class has to ensure continuing improvement in the environment for it to wage the struggle to improve its conditions, and in doing so, focus on the fundamental questions.
The working class has successfully done most of these things – fighting for the implementation of the RDP and addressing the constraints that we face; helping formulate the LRA and other labour laws, and ensuring progress particularly in the past year to start decisive steps to transform senior management of the public and security services.
But have we maintained focus all the time? My answer is: No. This is because there are serious tensions thrown up by the environment in which we operate
The target of resistance
Firstly, this is the tension between confronting the real fundamental issues and targeting the line of least resistance. This might be a problem of communication, but the example of the campaign around job creation is relevant. The democratic government is targeted; and this is much easier – it is the line of least resistance – than confronting the fundamental questions relating to allocative capital.
What are the banks doing to ensure that credit is extended to small, medium and macro enterprises? What are the insurance companies doing to ensure that the large funds that belong to ordinary people are allocated for productive purposes? Whatever quarrel we might have with GEAR, amongst the positive things that it said was that we should work towards ensuring that Gross Domestic Fixed Investments increase by a certain percentage that will help to stimulate faster growth. And we know this has not been the case because the private sector has not played ball.
But when we articulate what we view as the fundamental questions on job creation, it’s not these issues that are brought to the fore. What we hear is that government is destroying jobs; it’s not interested in implementing the decisions of the Jobs Summit – statements that have no basis in fact.
Secondly, it's the tension between some immediate interests of the working class (which should be pursued) and the medium-term interests of the NDR. For instance, it is easier to mobilise for higher public sector salaries (not that this is a wrong thing to do) than to systematically look at the revolutionary task of public sector transformation. Often we are heard talking about discipline within the teaching fraternity only after someone else has raised these issues and we are on the defensive, rather than being seen to initiate such campaigns ourselves.
The third area of tension is one between struggling to maintain the confidence of the mass membership and not loosing members to other unions on the one hand, and painstakingly explaining the difficult issues that may not necessarily bring immediate popularity, on the other. Where there is no balance, competition among "rival" unions in the same sector becomes one about militant slogans rather than real content. To illustrate: how often have we reached common undertakings in the Tripartite Alliance, only to discover a few months down the line that those common positions have hardly been communicated to the general membership? This is because it’s not a pleasant thing to communicate unpopular decisions.
This is a challenge that the ANC itself faces on an ongoing basis. One stark example you will remember was in the early 90's when we had to take the so-called Strategic Perspectives document about compromise to the general membership.
Failure to do this when the situation demands reflects a lack of resolve to lead. This can result in a situation in which militant pronouncements become a refuge from the difficult task of political education, they become a refuge from the difficult task of improving our organisational structures and of ensuring efficient service to the membership as a federation and as individual affiliates. And because we are distant from the membership, we are tempted to touch base mainly through militant press statements and, as Smirnow says, through occasional mass demonstration of a working class otherwise held in reserve.
Yet history does show that members respect a leadership if it is honest and does not recoil from raising real issues, even if the issues are unpopular.
The other area of tension is one between confining ourselves to old forms of struggle and agitation on the one hand and adapting to the reality of current local and international conditions on the other. To give some examples: We know there are two tendencies in the development of today’s capitalism: firstly, towards concentration of ownership and production across national boundaries, with transnational corporations and very big mergers; and secondly the tendency of outsourcing and contracting out, what one can call home production units or small specialised services. It’s happening in the textile industry, in the mines, information technology, the service industry and so on.
How do we address these two tendencies?
One obvious way is what Cosatu is doing, to form mega unions. But we also need to look at the roots of trade unionism if we have to address the other tendency. Trade unions first emerged as unions of trades, as guilds of artisans. It’s difficult to organise seamstresses (for lack of a better word) who are knitting things at home and putting on buttons, into the mega unions. But should we not develop strategies to organise these artisans wherever they are?
There are two other tendencies in the development of capitalism: Firstly, as Marx and Engels say, the working class has nothing to loose but its chains; it’s a unique class because in a situation of slavery the owner was obliged to feed the slave, and to some extent this applied to the serf who had to be provided with a small plot of land. Under capitalism there is no guarantee of survival for a worker. So increased pauperisation becomes one of the tendencies reflected not only in unemployment but also in poverty wages. This is happening not only in South Africa, but also in advanced countries.
This tendency of pauperisation goes hand-in-hand with that of improvement in the conditions of skilled workers. Many of the latter are developing to enjoy a middle class lifestyle, at the same time as they are joined by laboratory technicians, engineers, information technologists and so on who are all part of the conveyer belt in the concentrated and "electronised" production process.
So we find a sector of workers who face pauperisation and no hope from the capitalist system. But there is a sector that has hope. One of the dangers that can arise is that, because this sector that has got hope is skilled, educated and well-resourced, it will naturally assume leadership of the trade union movement. With the problem of proper accountability and servicing of membership that were discussed at the last Special Congress of Cosatu, the outlook and pronouncements in the trade union movement will thus come from this sector – a sector that has some hope, and is at times tempted through militancy, to prove its revolutionary mettle to the paupers it leads.
We need to conduct a continuing search for the correct balance amongst all these tensions. We should not pretend that they don't exist.
From time to time when we get cross with one another we do not quite understand why; but it is because of these real tensions that we face as revolutionaries in the new terrain of struggle.
Beyond these tensions, there are the more difficult political ones.
Firstly, the ANC is led by the working class but it pursues the interests of not just employed workers. In any case, a broad definition of the working class would include the really downtrodden paupers of our society, the unemployed, the poorest of the poor. As such, defence of the conditions of the employed has to be undertaken in a creative manner that does not lead to the continuing exclusion of the unemployed from meaningful economic activity. We have gained some experience in navigating this minefield in the discussions around Public Works Programmes and youth learnerships. The current debate around labour legislation in part reflects this dialectic.
The second strategic area of tension is the understanding and articulation of detours that we take in our long march. There is this tendency in the ANC and government to communicate compromises as if they were principle. An example in this instance is GEAR: while most of the document reflects the basic logic of our approach to macroeconomics, we had to include certain compromises because of the objective situation at that given time in order to stabilise an economy that was being beggared from all quarters, and to assure an investment community enveloped by mistrust. Perhaps, understandably and inevitably, for the sake of the markets, we communicated those compromises as if they were fundamental policies of the ANC. But are they?
The third area of strategic tension is one about long-term objectives: if Cosatu is indeed pursuing class struggle as part of the conscious effort toward the Socialist Revolution, what is socialism and how can it be achieved? Is it through an attitude that assumes that we now can and should move to socialist revolution – build socialism today! I am talking about a frame of mind and not the detail of scientific content, because if indeed that is the attitude, then this ANC government, which is not socialist, can easily be defined as an enemy.
Or is the approach to the achievement of socialism one that seeks delicately to deepen the national democratic revolution – within the context of globalisation – understanding that in this phase there will be unity and struggle defining our relationship with capital? "Unity" because socialists, as members of Cosatu may be, have to all work together with all of us in attracting capitalists from abroad and encourage those within South Africa to invest. And they will invest to make profit, as we benefit from job-creation and development of productive forces. "Struggle" obtains in many forms, including strikes, ideological debates, legislation to regulate the operation of capital and so on.
So we have to find the correct balance within each of these categories of tension referred to above. It is perhaps a failure to do so, a failure to navigate this dialectic, that when we meet in Tripartite Alliance summits, there is no real acrimony. But once we leave, the frame of mind of suspicion and confrontation takes over.
This requires that we go back to the basics, to view cadres in government as colleagues seeking the best for the working class and the poor, but faced with real problems and constraints that we should address together. There will naturally be tension from time to time – it’s unavoidable – but we can work together much better by integrating our pressures towards the common objective.
Lenin referred to this as pressure from above and from below. As some of the cadres pressurise for speedier transformation from within government and parliament, the mass of the working people should from below pressurise for the same things – and the impact will be that much more decisive. If for instance in our campaign for job creation we reinforced the voice of government calling for productive investment, that would make it difficult for anyone to evade the issue. Yet with a message that government is destroying jobs; that it’s the enemy, then we weaken government, we weaken the common cause of transformation.
In conclusion, if you were to ask me what central challenge confronts the trade union movement today, I would say: it is the challenge of finding the correct balance within and among all these tensions, proceeding from the understanding that passivity of the working class can lead to the derailment of the national democratic revolution; while in some instances, misguided militancy can kill a revolution.
I hope I have sufficiently fulfilled my mandate to provoke and anger you!
[Tel: +27 11 339-4911/24 Fax: +27 11 339-5080/6940 E-mail: patrick@cosatu.org.za]
