15/03/2016
JHB Region inter-zonal debate 12 March 2016
The Tripartite Alliance-Mugabe Ratshikuni
In a speech given in London in 1981 celebrating the 60th anniversary of the SACP, former ANC President Oliver Tambo had the following to say:
“The relationship between the ANC and the SACP is not an accident of history, nor is it a natural and inevitable development. For, as we can see, similar relationships have not emerged in the course of liberation struggles in other parts of Africa. To be true to history, we must concede that there have been difficulties as well as triumphs along our path., as traversing many decades, our two organisations have converged towards a shared strategy of struggle. Ours is not merely a paper alliance, created at conference tables and formalised through the signing of documents and representing only an agreement of leaders. Our alliance is a living organism that has grown out of struggle. This process of building the unity of all progressive and democratic forces in SA through united action received a particularly powerful impetus from the outstanding leadership of Isithwalandwe Chief Albert Luthuli as President General of the ANC. The process was assisted and supported by the tried and tested leadership of such stalwart revolutionaries as Isithwalandwe Yusuf Dadoo and Isithwalandwe, the late Moses Kotane, revolutionaries of the stature of J.B Marks and Bram Fischer.
Within our revolutionary alliance each organisation has a distinct and vital role to play. A correct understanding of these roles and respect for their boundaries has ensured their survival and consolidation of our cooperation and unity. As stated in its programme, the SACP unreservedly supports and participates in the struggle for national liberation led by the ANC, in alliance with the South African Indian Congress, the Congress of Trade Unions, the Coloured People’s Congress and other patriotic groups of democrats, women, peasants, youth….we need in other words to consolidate further our alliance and ensure its maximum effectiveness.”
These words, uttered by Tambo over thirty years ago ring true to us and are profoundly germane to us in our current alliance context today. Over the years, there have been many rumours of the impending death of the Tripartite Alliance, often reflecting the desires of our enemies as opposed to reality, others have suggested that the Alliance is for all intents and purposes irrelevant in the current political context, that the SACP and COSATU should go their own way and leave the ANC to itself. Others often talk about the challenge of unity within the Alliance as if it’s a new challenge, a “new tendency.” Well, though he was speaking particularly about the revolutionary alliance between the ANC and the SACP in the speech just quoted from, it is easy to see how Tambo’s words still ring true and are still relevant to the modern day Alliance between: the ANC, the SACP, COSATU and SANCO.
The foundation of the Alliance
When political organisations were unbanned in early 1990 and the process towards our successful negotiated transition was unfolding, the ANC, the SACP and COSATU came together and agreed to work as a revolutionary alliance in order to achieve the short, medium and long term goals of the NDR, which is the establishment of a democratic, non-racial SA, economic transformation and political democratisation. In late 1993, the South African National and Civic organisation was also co-opted into the Alliance (so one could argue that the term “tripartite” is a tad deceptive since there are not three, but four organisations which make up the modern day Alliance).
The Alliance itself however, goes way back in history, beyond the formation of COSATU, since the first relationship was between the ANC, the SACP and SACTU (South African Congress of Trade Unions). SACTU, which was founded in 1955, was the labour arm of the ANC until 1961 when the ANC was banned. Although SACTU itself was never banned, so many of its leaders were detained and killed that it effectively ceased to exist. Only with the rebirth of unions after the 1973 Durban strikes and the founding of FOSATU did labour once again have an organised voice.
When did FOSATU’s successor COSATU replace SACTU as the third element within the Alliance? Was this agreed when Jay Naidoo led a delegation to visit the ANC in Lusaka in February 1986 or did it come later? Well, whatever the case may be, it was only in March 1990 that SACTU finally accepted the inevitable and was phased out.
So the Alliance traces its ideological and historical roots back to the 1950s when the Congress Alliance brought together the ANC and its coloured, Indian and white counterparts. The main aim for forming the alliance at this time was to provide an inclusive vehicle of transformation in South Africa and a platform for discussion of new approaches and shifts in macro-economic policies.
The Structure and Functioning of the Alliance
Each Alliance partner is an independent organisation with its own constitution, membership and programmes. What brings the Alliance together is a common commitment to the objectives of the NDR and a need to unite the largest possible cross-section of South Africans behind these objectives. So within this, there will be internal jockeying to advance certain ideological views and perspectives, a natural and quite logical political process which media and the opposition often mistake for disunity or an indication of imminent break up. These are not new challenges as Tambo’s speech from 1981 clearly shows us. It is only by focussing on what brought us together as Alliance partners, our common objectives and goals that we can ensure that the Alliance remains strong and steadfast. It is important to always remember that the Alliance is not just a marriage of political convenience, it is an existential political necessity that the Alliance partners stay together in order to achieve the common objectives of the NDR. The divergence in terms of ideology need not necessarily lead to a split as there is convergence of political goals/objectives which necessitates that the Alliance partners stick /stay together.
Is the Alliance a coalition of equals or are some organisations more equal than others? Within the Alliance, the organisations are independent of each other with their own structures, finances, leadership and programmes. Members are allowed to have membership within the other members of the Alliance as well as to lead. There is no official document that was ever signed to formalise the relationship, so often the relationship is governed by long established traditions and norms. So the Alliance is an informal, flexible revolutionary political relationship based on deep historical ties and comradely solidarities amongst members and leaders.
It is commonly accepted that the ANC is the leader of the Alliance, the centre of power within both the Alliance and society at large although as recently as late last year COSATU was calling for the Alliance to be reconfigured, giving all parties equal decision-making powers. How this would work in practice, with the ANC being in power, is a matter that of course is open for debate. The ANC is also the sole avenue for Alliance partners to become involved in elected governance structures as the other Alliance partners do not contest elections independently but do so within the banner of the ANC. The SACP has always been seen as the one playing the vanguard role within the Alliance and historically it always sought to attract the “best and the brightest to its ranks.” Whether this is true or not in the current dispensation I will once again leave to you to judge.
COSATU of course represents the workers (the working class interests) within the Alliance and ideologically it leans towards the SACP which it sees as the vanguard party of worker interests. The SACP and COSATU are both committed to a socialist revolution leading to a “dictatorship of the proletariat” within a “classless, stateless society.” The ANC itself, in fighting the struggle for national liberation along with all its historical allies, never committed itself to a socialist revolution but generally took a more social democratic line in policy matters. It is a multi-class organisation with diverse interests all coming together to pursue the goals and objectives of the NDR.
So in essence, the question becomes for the ANCs partners within the Alliance: are we ever going to get to this pure socialist phase of “communism, dictatorship of the proletariat and a classless, stateless society” with the ANC leading us within the Alliance? If so, at what phase towards this ultimate end goal are we at now? The problem here is that the task for socialists in South Africa is made hard by the fact that there is limited example of national struggles that fully matured to socialism, as the two stage theory advocated initially by the likes of Moses Kotane would lead us to believe we are heading to. The examples for SA socialists to look at might perhaps be Cuba, China and Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. The problem is that these experiments themselves are stuck somewhere in between capitalism and socialism and hence have not gone towards that final stage of pure communism. In fact, one might argue that China, with Deng Xiaoping’s reforms since 1976 and Cuba under Raul Castro recently have actually gone in the opposite direction, this oxymoron called state capitalism. The fundamental problem is that not only did the socialist experiments of the 20th century not cause the state to wither away, but it actually became domineering and oppressive.
Contemporary challenges to the alliance
As can be deciphered from Tambo’s 1981 London speech, the Alliance has not existed without any challenges to its unity and existence, but the added factor of having the ANC in government with access to resources and patronage has of course brought an even greater edge to these challenges.
There are arguments about communists taking up senior leadership positions within the ANC (which also translates into deployment into key government posts) and whether this is good for the ANC? These aren’t new arguments. Nationalists like Anton Lembede differed with Communists like Moses Kotane (yet they could work together for a common purpose). In a speech given in 1968 here’s what Moses Kotane had to say about this challenge, “the fact that I am a Communist has never changed or interfered with my representation on behalf of the ANC. When I have been charged with a mission by the ANC National Executive, I have protected and promoted the interests of the ANC and have never changed my mandate. Likewise, when I have been charged with a mission by the Communist Party I have stuck to the terms of my mandate and defended the interests of the party, in the formulation of policy of the two organisations I look for a correct political stand and formulation for the organisation concerned.”
So, the challenge about Communists in senior leadership positions within the ANC is not a new one and Kotane addresses it very well as just shown. The other matter that has caused great tensions within the Alliance in contemporary times has been the issue of policy formulation with the ANC leading an Alliance that is now governing. As Kotane clearly shows, the policy challenge is not a new one within the Alliance, but rather it is merely the context which is different. As ANC members communists are free to influence and shape ANC policy positions within the structures. The reality however is that the ANC’s post-Apartheid programme has not in any way threatened the existence of capitalism as it has been heavily reliant on foreign investment to stimulate the economy and this has caused serious problems with its Alliance partners.
For example, under President Thabo Mbeki, the SACP almost served as some kind of ideological opposition against the Presidency and the socio-economic policies of the government. They saw the policies of the ANC-led government post 1996 as representing a “class project” against working class interests. There was tension to the point where President Nelson Mandela declared in the Sunday Times in 1997, “There are matters where we will agree. The second category is matters where we disagree among us, but compromise. The third category is where there is no agreement at all and the government will go on with its policy. “
So for us as young revolutionaries, the challenge is to find new, better ways to make the Alliance work better and be more effective with the ANC leading it in government.
Others tend to argue that the Alliance is dead and no longer relevant. Didn’t former President Motlanthe not say something along those lines not too long ago? In a Daily Maverick article on 11 July 2013, one of their staff reporters wrote the following, “in the 1980s and 1990s COSATU, the SACP and the ANC had much in common. All three were led by self-sacrificing revolutionaries, people willing to lose life, liberty and limb for the freedom of all South African people. All three had members in prison, all three had been victims of a relentless onslaught from a minority government whose viciousness was exacerbated by knowledge of its pending demise. All three were equally committed to ending white minority rule. But that was one world. Today is another.” The argument here being that there was a time when the Alliance was relevant but that it isn’t anymore. This argument is of course built on the historical fallacy that humans are prone to, of glorifying the past and those in it whilst undermining and ridiculing the present and the role played by those in it. Often history judges you more kindly than your contemporaries do. We have seen from the likes of O.R Tambo and Moses Kotane that many of the challenges faced by the Alliance today, where there in our “glorious” past. Our challenge is to find new, better ways to resolve them and make the Alliance work better.
We all know the Alliance is not working as effectively and efficiently as it should. Our task as young revolutionaries is to come up with ways and means to ensure this changes so that the Alliance can achieve its revolutionary objectives and our people’s lives can be bettered.
Should COSATU form its own workers’ party and break away from the Alliance? Should the SACP contest elections independently? Well, have the common goals that brought these three revolutionary allies been achieved? Has white minority rule truly been conquered with most of the economy still in white hands? Has institutionalised racism and economic exploitation of our people been defeated? Is non-racialism a true reality in SA today? Are we a truly united, unified society? These are the things that brought the Alliance partners together and these are the things that should keep us together, fighting as comrades in arms till we accomplish our common objectives.
So the answer is, NO, the Alliance isn’t irrelevant, No it isn’t dead as comrade Kgalema Motlanthe suggested not too long ago. The Alliance is relevant, it is alive and it is up to us (with this understanding) to go out there and prove it so.
Allow me to end of by quoting comrade Joe Slovo: “The Alliance between the ANC and our party (SACP) has very deep roots in our South African condition. There are no secret clauses and no hidden agenda in this Alliance. The stability and closeness of the relationship and the participation of individual communists in the leading of upper echelons of the national trade union and other mass movements has its roots in our party’s historically evolved style of work in relation to the mass movements. We have always respected and defended the independence, integrity and the inner democratic processes of the mass organisations. To act otherwise is to suffocate them as creative organs and to confuse manipulation with leadership.
Our alliance with the ANC coincides with this approach: it is not and should not be premised on the acceptance by the ANC or any other anti-racist force of socialism as the ultimate liberator.”
Comrades, as OR Tambo implored us to do in 1981,” We need in other words to consolidate further our Alliance and ensure its maximum effectiveness.”
Long live the Alliance Long Live!!! Viva ANC Viva!!!Viva COSATU VIVA!!!Viva SACP Viva!!!Amandla!!!Matla!!!
