Jeremy Cronin writes (July 20) that the “key achievement” of the South African Communist Party was to rethink the communist project. The seminal work in this regard was Joe Slovo’s Has Socialism Failed? (1990) which argued as Cronin puts it that the “key weakness in the Soviet system was a tragic undermining of democracy”.
Cronin is however slightly coy about exactly how as Slovo put it “Stalinism” had “denuded the party and practice of socialism of most of its democratic content and concentrated power in the hands of a tiny, self-perpetuating elite”. In the Soviet system, Slovo wrote, the legislative organs acted as rubber stamps “for decisions … by party structures”. The executive and judicial organs of government were “for all practical purposes, under the direct control of the party bureaucracy”.
A particular concern for Slovo was the erosion of democracy within the party: “Under the guise of ‘democratic centralism’ inner-party democracy was almost completely suffocated by centralism.” All effective power was concentrated in the hands of the politburo “or in some cases, a single, all-powerful personality”. The control by the party over the leadership was purely nominal, with the party congress usually being manipulated from the top, and the central committee exerting only “the most tenuous jurisdiction over the political bureau”. In practice, “the basic party unit was there to explain, defend, exhort and support policies in whose formulation they rarely participated”.
For Slovo, in the conditions created “by so-called democratic centralism”, the “democratic development of party policy became a virtual impossibility”.
At the SACP congress in 1991 all references to democratic centralism were removed from the party’s constitution. Although it retained much of its Leninist character, the centralist aspects were counterbalanced by new clauses making the leadership more accountable and giving members greater say over party policy.
One of the important consequences of these reforms is that there is (or seems to be) a fairly vibrant culture of debate and discussion within the SACP. The Marxist-Leninism of the SACP is also far more subtle and nuanced than the crude racialised version that guides the African National Congress.
It is ironic that while the SACP began the decade distancing itself from “democratic centralism”; the ANC would end the decade reaffirming it.
In the run-up to the ANC national general council in July last year, it released a discussion document entitled ANC People’s Movement and Agent for Change. The paper stated that “The organisational forms and practices of the ANC have always been based on democratic centralism.”
At the council ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe informed delegates that “the principles of democratic centralism continue to guide our structures.” This meant (inter alia) that decisions were binding on all members of the ANC: “Leaders and cadres have a responsibility to abide by, defend and implement these decisions.” In other words, party members are required to explain, defend, exhort and support the decisions of the leadership.
The SACP was, funnily enough, in a unique position to oppose these developments, particularly as the democratic centralism advocated by the ANC was (in theory and practice) indistinguishable from that practised under Soviet regimes. The SACP was close enough to the ANC to be fully aware of these developments. Slovo had also clearly spelt out the consequences of these policies.
In June last year the SACP politburo discussed the documents prepared for the council. It endorsed the major discussion document. For the politburo the paper “correctly reaffirmed” democratic centralism as one of the “major organisational values and traditions of the ANC”. This tradition, the politburo said, had “evolved over decades of struggle” and was “more relevant than ever”. James Myburgh, Democratic Alliance