Ahead of the South African Communist Party (SACP) descending on Polokwane to reassert itself as South Africa’s leading party of the left, a minority of its current and former members are exploring the possibility of finding a new home, arguing that the goal of socialism cannot be confined to the ”sole wisdom” of the Communist party.
Organisers of the Conference of the Left, scheduled for March 2010, are on a countrywide consultation mission to secure a minimum of 150 000 endorsements before next year’s conference. Though the organising committee did not want to admit outright that it was working towards forming a new party of the left, all indications are that the conference might culminate in the formation of a political party.
”There is no predetermined outcome,” said a member of the organising committee, Vishwas Satgar, who terminated his SACP membership in April after running into trouble with the leadership.
Organisers hope to draw support from disaffected members of ailing socialist parties and the Congress of South African Trade Unions.
”It is important to recognise that in the SACP, Azapo [Azanian People’s Organisation], PAC [Pan Africanist Congress] and Sopa [Socialist Party of Azania], there are many genuine socialists, workers, radicals and militants who support the broad goals we are putting forward,” said a leading member of the organising committee for the envisaged conference, Mazibuko Jara, who is also an SACP member.
Satgar added that there were many disgruntled people within the ANC-led tripartite alliance who have not been offered an alternative for a socialist party. ”The alliance did not split two-ways,” said Satgar, referring to last year’s formation of the breakaway party, the Congress of the People (Cope). ”There is a third split, the silent people who are firmly soul-searching and are trying to find a platform.”
The idea is to do away with the old model of socialism that used the Stalinist formula, said Satgar. ”Our starting point is recognising that those old models are in crisis. We want to get to the renewal of the left politics.”
Satgar said the old left is Stalinist and manipulative, and had failed to address real issues that affect the people, such as ”the brutal reality of hunger” linked to unemployment. The new left, he said, would seek to fight the struggles that resonate with society. ”With the old left you capture the state first through the military or elections, and then you change the society. With us it is not about the state. We want to build power from below.”
Jara said despite many socialists identifying with both the ANC and its alliance partners, there was still space for a more united vehicle to drive the improvement of people’s lives. ”Despite the massive support that the ANC continues to enjoy, so long as it is unable to redistribute wealth and structurally transform this economy, there will always be a case for socialism and the organisation of political and social forces to advance a socialist agenda.”
During the same weekend as the SACP’s special congress, supporters of the democratic left will be holding a provincial inaugural meeting in the Eastern Cape. A national meeting will be held in Cape Town the following weekend.
The Young Communist League in Gauteng said the process of organising the democratic left conference was ”misconceived” and branded it a plan to establish a ”post- and pseudo-Cope anti-SACP left-wing formation”.