April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

more than one weapon for every two soldiers. How did the red army, led
by Trotsky, overcome this? By appealing to the soldiers who were
themselves oppressed workers and peasants. By appealing to the soldiers
not to attack their brothers and sisters they not only provoked mass mutiny
thus causing the armies to withdraw, but they also laid the basis for the
creation of mass communist parties in all parts of the world.
How to win the masses in South Africa
In South Africa today the situation is a thousand times more favourable
than in Russia in 1917. The working class, the majority of which are quite
well educated, is incomparably larger and gathered in large cities. The
Communist Party is a sizeable force and has great influence. There is a
large trade union federation with very revolutionary traditions and a large
active working class base. At the same time the masses have shown that
they are willing to fight. This is not just true today, but a historical fact.
Since 1948, there have been very few years without big mass movements
in South Africa.
However, what is needed is for the Communist Party to develop a clear
programme that links up the daily day struggles of the masses with the
perspective of socialism. When the people in the townships protest against
the cutting of water and electricity it is the duty of the communists to
participate and generalize their struggle by spreading it to other areas and
linking it up with other struggles and by also explaining that the root cause
of all these problems is the capitalist system, thereby linking their struggle
with the struggle for socialism. In this manner the Communist Party would
be able to place itself at the head of these struggles and give them an
organized expression. This is how the party can mobilize the working class
and thus change “the balance of forces”.
What one should NOT do is to accuse striking workers, who are defending
themselves against police crackdowns, of being counter-revolutionary. The
public sector workers' strike was an amazing opportunity for the SACP to
place itself at the head of the South African working class. More than 1.3
million workers were out on strike and hundreds of thousands more were
ready to join in. Like the YCL, the SACP should have given the strike full
support. And not only that, the party should have started a national
campaign for a general strike in defence of the workers who were beaten
and murdered by the police forces. By mobilizing the whole working class
the reasonable demands of the workers could easily have been won and
the party would have clearly presented itself as an alternative to the
reformist ANC government. If the party had presented itself as a clear
alternative on a socialist basis an even greater victory would have been
prepared than that of simply winning higher wages.
But as we all know that is not what happened. In fact the behaviour of the
party leadership greatly disillusioned a wide layer with the party and thus
it turned the “unfavourable balance of forces” statement into a selffulfilling
strategy. As long as the leadership of the class is not willing to
lead it in its struggles, the balance of forces will never become
“favourable”.
Independence of the party
To comrade Nzimande explaining the need for socialist revolution within
parliament and inside the ANC seems ruled since he has to abide by the
discipline of the ANC – meaning in effect that he has to obey the petit
bourgeois reformist leadership of the ANC and not its revolutionary ranks.
This has pushed some honest comrades to conclude that the SACP must
therefore withdraw from the tripartite alliance and stand in elections
independently.