Two prominent African National Congress leaders have entered the debate around the alleged danger of an ”ultra-left sectarian faction” inside and outside the ranks of the South African national liberation movement.
The essence of Jabu Moleketi and Josiah Jele’s paper, Two Strategies of the National Liberation Movement in the Struggle for the Victory of the National Democratic Revolution, is that there is an ”ultra-left plot” to unseat or at least undermine a popularly elected government. This ultra-left is somehow in cahoots with the right wing. Secondly, the paper makes a call on ”revolutionary democrats” (meaning the ANC) and ”revolutionary socialists” (the ”good parts” of the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the SouthAfrican Communist Party) to unite against the supposed threat of this enemy in our midst.
The greatest difficulty with the document is that nowhere in its 28 pages are the organisation or people that Moleketi and Jele are warning against identified. Given the enormity of what this group is alleged to be involved in — the authors say it is ”the decisive army of counter-revolution charged with the strategic task to destroy the democratic movement” — one would have expected that they would at least have been able to find some quotes from statements, articles or speeches by the people they seek to discredit.
In the end there is but one solitary statement by an identified advocate of the ”ultra-left” views under discussion. That ”honour” falls on economist and academic Patrick Bond, whose views on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) are presented as proof of the ”ultra-left” agenda.
All the rest of the authors’ venom is directed at shadows — unidentified, mysterious ”forces” who are so powerful and dangerous that they threaten to derail and roll back the liberation struggle, yet apparently have produced no manifesto or policy declaration, and operate in such obscurity that no one, including comrades Moleketi and Jele, knows who they are. Surely if the authors seriously want to expose these people they should be able to reveal their identities and quote from their policy positions.
Instead we are treated to the politics of paranoia. We are expected to believe that these ”ultra-leftists” are allied with ”domestic and international bourgeois groupings” and ”the bourgeois media” who, we are told, ”have identified this faction as their most effective force for deployment against the democratic revolution”. ”Common purpose,” they say, ”has united the bourgeois right and the ‘proletarian left’.”
This is plainly ludicrous. The only significant right-wing parties in South Africa are the New National Party, which is currently in an alliance with the ANC, and the Democratic Alliance. Are we seriously expected to believe Tony Leon is secretly collaborating with the ”ultra-left”? No one has been more vocal in attacking the trade unions and left-wing policies. Both these parties are resolutely opposed to reformist, let alone socialist or ”ultra-left”, policies.
The irredeemably flawed method-ology of analysis used by comrades Moleketi and Jele seems to have three basic strategies: McCarthyism, liberal usage of red herrings, and what can only be described as a Qur’anic approach to Marxism-Leninism. In favour of these strategies, the authors forego a sober analysis that could lead to constructive debate.
Throughout the document issues are confused rather than clarified by inserting long quotations from Marx, Engels and Lenin, which are so selective and ripped out of their historical context that they are totally irrelevant to the point the authors are trying to make.
These comrades treat Marxism quite shabbily, not as a living body of historical and economic knowledge, but as a written bible of eternal truths to be pulled out of a hat and quoted extensively on any day, useful to silence the modern heretic.
There is, however, one passage from Lenin that has to be discussed because it takes us to the heart of what this debate is really about. This is his defence of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, under which the Soviet government permitted elements of capitalism to re-enter the socialist economy of the former Soviet Union.
Moleketi and Jele clearly see this as a model for the ANC government of South Africa today. They are using Lenin, of all people, to support the argument that there is nothing wrong with capitalism, and that the market is the best economic system available to solve the problems of South Africa. For that is what this document is — an argument for private enterprise and the market economy.
It would have been far better for the authors to openly admit this at the outset and declare that they are opening a debate on the merits of capitalism as opposed to socialism. Then we could have a very real and necessary debate within our movement.
Why confuse everybody by wrapping up their argument in pseudo-Marxist mumbo-jumbo about ”revolutionary democracy”, irrelevant passages from Marx and Lenin and wild conspiracy theories? Why not simply say: ”We believe capitalism is the best policy for the ANC government to adopt,” and stop claiming that anyone who disagrees with that or advocates socialist policies is by definition ”ultra-left”?
Clearly the authors lack the courage of their capitalist convictions. The reason is not hard to find. They know full well that within the ANC’s mem-bership and constituency there will be little support for their ideas. So they have to pretend their pro-capitalist policies are actually defending and extending the national democratic revolution and fighting for the national liberation of the African people.
This is where their misrepresentation of Lenin’s position on the NEP is central. An overall reading of Lenin’s writings reveals quite clearly that the reintroduction of elements of capitalism was a compromise forced on the Soviet government by the devastation caused by years of war, revolution, civil war and famine. The economy had been wrecked and it had no alternative but to seek ways to rebuild the country’s ruined infrastructure. Lenin likens this to the kind of compromise you have to make when you are held at gunpoint and forced to hand over your money. He saw it as a temporary expedient that would buy time and create the conditions for the continuation of the building of socialism. He insisted that the state should remain in overall control of the economy and warned against the dangers of a new capitalist class (the ”NEP men”) emerging, which might try to reintroduce capitalism.
Moleketi and Jele conveniently forget that Lenin was writing about a Soviet economy in which socialism had been established and was discussing the best strategies for taking it forward.
South Africa in 2002 is not a socialist economy and, as it keeps reminding us, the ANC is not a socialist organisation and has no intention of taking South Africa on the same road that Lenin had taken the Soviet Union at the time of the NEP. The authors put forward capitalism and the market economy not as an enforced compromise to buy time, but the best way forward for South Africa now and in the future.
Others on the genuine left, including Cosatu and the SACP, disagree, and with good reason. They believe that the problems of poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment will not be solved if left solely to market forces. They believe the state must continue to play a dominant role in directing investment to those areas where the people need it most. This is no ultra-left view and is in line with policy positions articulated in the Reconstruction and Development Programme. That does not mean that socialists are opposed to any compromises with capitalism. Only a few real ultra-leftists hold that view. But when compromises have to be made it is vital to see them as temporary diversions and not alternative solutions to the problems, as Moleketi and Jele argue.
That is the real question we ought to be debating, not abstract theor-ising but what policies in practice are the best for taking forward the national democratic revolution and liberating our people from poverty, disease and unemployment.
Moleketi and Jele themselves identify four key areas of disagreement:
Restructuring of state assets;
Mobility of capital across borders;
Opening the domestic market to international commodities and services; and
Development and mobility of labour as a factor of production, to keep pace with the development of the means and methods of production.
On all these issues the authors support policies that promote market forces and private capital as the main motors of change. Cosatu disagrees, and sees the state having a central role to play.
On the first point, the federation has always supported the restructuring of state assets, to make them more efficient and improve their service delivery, but is opposed to simply selling them off to the highest bidder. To the government, however, ”restructuring” has become a euphemism for privatisation. Even on that, Cosatu is not inflexible. As President Thabo Mbeki keeps pointing out, the federation did not oppose the selling off of the Aventura holiday resorts and Sun Air, which are not providers of essential services. But the federation draws the line at the privatisation in 11 areas that provide essential services. These are water, sewage and rubbish disposal, basic housing, health, education, telecommunications, safety and security, welfare provision, transport, elec- tricity and basic cultural amenities.
On the second and third points, it would be suicidal for trade unions to try to stop incoming investment or an expansion of international trade, and Cosatu has not done so. But it would be no less suicidal to disregard the potentially damaging effects of opening up markets in a world where the playing field is not level but biased in favour of the big multinational companies and financial institutions. That is why Cosatu has supported continuing government controls over capital and tariffs, to protect local industries and save jobs. Volatility in the exchange rate is in part attributable to the absence of capital controls, for the logic of market flexibility is capital outflow from developing economies.
On the fourth question, the mobility of labour, Cosatu has reservations over adopting this as a policy. ”Mobility” has become in reality to mean casualisation, piece jobs and low-quality employment, with poverty wages and no benefits. The government has to intervene proactively to protect jobs and not leave the market to solve the crisis of mass unemployment.
These are the practical, realistic policies that the left, the trade union movement, most of civil society and the majority of the ANC membership support. Yet Moleketi and Jele identify these as ”ultra-left”. Does this mean that all those who support all or at least some of these views are the ultra-left?
Moleketi and Jele’s counter-arguments are that the state cannot generate the required resources we need for its social programmes and has no alternative but to ”attract as much private capital into our country as possible”, in part by bring in ”strategic equity partners”. But while everyone would welcome private investment, we cannot abdicate control over the economy to the people who bring in this investment.
They deny that any large-scale privatisation has taken place or is planned. But the reality is that large areas of telecommunications, electricity generation, the ports, water and sanitation and public transport are being sold off and many services in local government, the roads network, prisons and the health service have been outsourced to private companies.
They argue that these measures have brought in revenue and improved services. While it is obviously true that privatisation generates money for the government, the big problem is that it is a one-off exercise (sometimes compared to selling off the family silver). Once sold the state’s assets are permanently reduced. That might be justified if the benefits were clear. But experience in South Africa and internationally shows that in most cases, privatisation actually leads to poorer service, higher tariffs and fewer jobs.
Moleketi and Jele give great weight to the ”ultra-left’s” supposed policy on Nepad. They caricature a posture of root-and-branch opposition to any plan for the regeneration of Africa. But no one has adopted such a position. The genuine left has never opposed Nepad’s stated principles. Cosatu and every socialist formation will support any programme that aims to put an end to wars, poverty, disease, corruption, racism and dictatorship in Africa. There are, however, genuine worries that, as presently conceived, Nepad may do none of these things. Just like the ANC’s domestic policies, Nepad relies too heavily on the private sector and market forces. In an unequal world economy, unfettered market forces lead to domination by the multinationals and financial institutions and thus a continuation of the economic imperialism, which is the main reason for Africa’s problems in the first place.
Our experience with privatisation puts the lie to the argument that only the private sector has the human and capital resources needed for development. South African Airways has had to be renationalised, the ”management contract” governing the Post Office had to be cancelled, the market has no enthusiasm for the second national operator, and Telkom has haemorrhaged jobs over the past three years.
The only purpose the Moleketi/Jele publication will serve will be if it stirs up a debate that ultimately demolishes the myth that there is a strong ”ultra-left” force allied to the right wing and bourgeois media to destroy the national democratic revolution.
The McCarthyism of Moleketi/Jele could ironically have the effect of stirring up the same anti-communist hysteria associated with the apartheid psyche. Already we see the left being treated as one unvaried, dangerous monolith, and its entire world of ideas as un-nuanced, counter-revolutionary propaganda. We are treading dangerous ground indeed.
We are in desperate need of an intervention that focuses the movement on the real debate on which economic policy, in South Africa and the continent, will take forward the struggle for national liberation and the end of all the massive problems that still afflict us.
Vukani Mde is Cosatu’s spokesperson, Patrick Craven is editor of Cosatu’s publication, The Shopsteward, and Oupa Bodibe is Cosatu’s secretariat coordinator