communist
Dale McKinley Crossfire
I have been expelled from the South African Communist Party for being a committed, critical communist. That is really the gist behind the SACP central committee’s decision to throw me out of the ranks of the organisation, no matter the cleverly argued rationalisations presented by Jeremy Cronin (“Setting the ‘free thinker’ free”, August 18 to 24). This is an unfortunate development for me (as a member and leader of the SACP over the past seven years), as it is for other communists who happen to be members of the SACP. Cronin and the rest of the SACP central committee have clearly abrogated unto themselves the privilege of defining what is “compatible with the principles (and membership) of the SACP”. In doing so, notwithstanding their protestations to the contrary, they have also struck a blow against the more generalised right of all South Africans to openly debate and critique that which is most controversial and directed at the most powerful, wherever they are. At a time when the forces of the working class are faced with the most concerted and expansive attack from the political and economic representatives of capitalism, it is simply beyond comprehension why leaders of a communist party would expel someone for offering open and honest critical contributions that seek to take forward working-class struggles. It is self evident that any political argument and/or historical interpretation is subject to debate and contestation, otherwise we would never have to engage in such. Whether Cronin, or the central committee, is convinced by my own contributions in this regard is beside the point. The real issue is this – when open and legitimate critical debate and contestation (internal to an organisation or not) proceeds to become the basis for declaring that such is “incompatible” with subjectively determined “codes” of conduct and thinking, then we are all in trouble. Cronin’s attempt to present my expulsion as some sort of benevolent act on the part of the SACP leadership to “free” me from the constraints of “party discipline” exhibits a predictable, if unfortunate, patronisation of what are political and organisational components of a fundamental and necessary debate. This allows Cronin (and the SACP central committee) to paint a picture of me as a wildly undisciplined “protocols of criticism” and who has been bent on “undermining the integrity” of the leadership of alliance formations. It is a distorted and malicious approach that is in the worst tradition of Stalinist methodology – that is, ignore the message and discredit (or in the case of previous communist dissidents, kill) the messenger. According to this enlightened school of thought and organisation, if I have consistently and openly raised substantive and vigorous criticisms of the class agenda of the African National Congress leadership, both within and outside the SACP, then I am guilty of transgressing SACP “practice” and “approach”. This begs the question: what kind of communist “practice/ approach” is it that considers leaders as disciplined cadres who, without any mandate from within the organisation, actively implement capitalist policies in direct contradiction of the SACP programme? Cronin’s answer is that SACP members should not concern themselves with such obvious cases of political hypocrisy and organisational inconsistency, and if they do they should not be surprised if they are then disciplined.
The logic here is astounding, regardless of one’s ideological orientation. Cronin and the central committee are saying (in all seriousness) that it is SACP “practice” and “approach” to accept that those who “happen” to be democratically elected SACP leaders must do whatever they are told to do by the ANC. They are telling SACP members to forget any programmatic expectations that the members might have of the leaders they elected to struggle for socialism. In the same breath, Cronin informs that, “a Cabinet minister or a Cosatu official who happen to be SACP members cannot be expected, when they act in their government or union capacities, to flout the policies of those structures”.
Those who take SACP membership and the political/programmatic principles that come with it seriously are just out of luck. It is clear that the SACP central committee has interpreted “respect for organisational integrity” on its own terms. For them, actual intellectual and practical interventions consistent with a struggle for socialism are incidental to the “practice” and “approach” of this kind of SACP. Given the contradictory and parlous state of such political and organisational logic, never mind practice, it is not surprising that Cronin and the SACP central committee feel the need to disparage my own “practice” and “approach” as that of a “zealot”. Instead of affirming intellectual commitment and practical hard work consistent with the anti-capitalist principles of the SACP programme, they see an “all-or-nothing mindset” where “all that is different and diverse must be expunged”. Strange reasoning indeed, coming as it does from those who have just expelled someone for trying to engage in an open debate and for offering “different” perspectives and interpretations than their own. I had always been under the impression, clearly now at odds with that of the central committee, that the SACP was not the political incarnation of the Catholic Church where “members” need to seek forgiveness for their “sins”, as interpreted by, and through, the organisational hierarchy. It would now appear that my “sin” was that I confused, and therefore misunderstood, the respective importance of political injunctions of a collectively mandated programme with the “superior [interpretive] morality” of the central committee. In the words of the high priests of communist ethics and morality, I made the fatal mistake of not showing any intent to “learn from my mistakes” or “of seeking to correct my behaviour”. Forgive me Father Jeremy, but what was that you said about “the foreclosure of the frozen penultimate”?
As a committed, critical communist, I will never be “free” of anything until everybody is “free” of everything. Rosa Luxemburg put it as well as anyone by reminding us that: “Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – is not freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently … its effectiveness vanishes when ‘freedom’ becomes a special privilege.”
More than anything else, the content and character of the political and organisational “approach” and “practice” that informs my expulsion will, if taken to its logical conclusion, eventually destroy the SACP. It is unfortunate in the extreme that Cronin and the SACP central committee appear to have now embraced an SACP made up of organisationally cowed, ideologically confused and politically unprincipled members. If this is what the SACP becomes, then, just like so many other communist parties, it too will gradually slip into political and practical oblivion.