In his examination of why despite their meagre results at the polls, nine non-ruling communist parties in Europe continue to have sporadic participation in multi-party coalitions in government, Sidney Tarrow indicates that communist parties enter governments during perceived socioeconomic or political crises or as a left-wing of a multi-party coalition in which the communist parties occupy a central position within the left coalition while the centrist parties and republicans holds a centre stage within the opposite conservative pole. (Tarrow, 1982). Tarrow (1982) delineates the motivation for the participation of communist parties in such coalition governments or alliance politics as the perception of the communist parties that a crisis situation prevails and a fear of being absent during a critical period. He concludes that the need not to be isolated or marginalised within the political arena cause communist parties to actively or passively support moderate policies and to form alliances with normally anti-communist elements. This implies the belief that communist parties have the theoretical and practical acumen that can take the country out of a crisis but either lack the courage, will and capacity to take the reins of political power or believe that the balance of forces don’t allow them to do so on their own.
The observations of Tarrow (1982) correlates with the proposition that though the political cooperation between the African National Congress (ANC), Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the South African National Civics Organization (SANCO) has historical and ideological roots, their alliance in the post-1990 dispensation is a product of coincidence of political interests. (O’ Malley, 2000). On the eve of the first national democratic elections in 1994, the ANC sought organizational skills, material support, membership and votes or electoral support from COSATU, SACP and SANCO. On other hand, COSATU and SANCO needed a political organization that can win elections, hold political power, and advance a progressive agenda and safe-guards labour and civil society interests in parliament. At the same time, the ANC had the need to enlist seasoned strategists, tacticians, organizers and campaigners from its alliance partners. Its electoral prospects depend highly on the numbers that the constituencies of its alliance partners added to its membership and support base. Furthermore, the reputable political militancy, organizational skills and ideological insights of the SACP gave it a powerful base within the constituency of both the ANC and COSATU. However, the SACP did not have enough popular support to be a political force on its own in parliamentary politics where numbers are important. Therefore, the SACP had to remain a partner of ANC to try to get the ANC to incorporate its social objectives and agendas. (O’Malley, 2000).
The SACP did foresee that once the ANC is in political office ,it would be tall order to mediate and harmonise the latter’s multi-class and centrist politics with the former’s professed working-class and leftist politics. In lieu of this eventuality, the SACP opted to use as its key tactical device the notion of its members and that of COSATU and SANCO swelling the ranks of the ANC with the aim of populating ANC spaces and platforms with communist ideas and the party-line. The other tactical devices it utilised are (1) intensifying efforts to influence the political perspective of COSATU unions and education and research labour service organizations such as Ditsela and the Workers College of South Africa, (2) deploying some of its seasoned cadres to take up leadership and influential positions within COSATU and the labour service organization, (3) lobbying and campaigning for the leading activists of SACP, Cosatu and SANCO to have fair representation in the parliamentary and ministerial list of the ANC, and (4) pushing for extensive consultation and engagement of alliance partners on significant policy and programmatic issues relating to both the ANC and the government. The unintended and negative consequences of this strategy was a brain drain within the leftist component of the alliance (i.e COSATU, SACP and COSATU) as the result of an exodus of its seasoned leaders and activists to government. This also created the problematic situation where these members found themselves bound by both the oath of office and ANC processes. This compelled them to implement policies and programmes of the ANC even when they were at odds with their own personal values and the principles of COSATU, SACP and SANCO. The other challenge that this arrangement created is the political careerism tendency whereby individuals perceive and use their positions of leadership and influence within COSATU, SACP and SANCO as a social currency and stepping ladder to access deployment into government or business with the government. This opened the allies of the ANC prone to being enmeshed in internal factional divisions of the ANC as they had to be in the good books of whatever faction of the ANC that would become victorious in the contest for control of the government. This is reflected by how the SACP and COSATU threatened to pull out of the alliance in 2006 but backtracked after former President Jacob Zuma emerged victorious at the Polokwane conference, and religiously defended Jacob Zuma throughout the so-called nine wasted years until the dying hours of the second term of Zuma in office.
As for the ANC, its enlistment of leading and experienced activists of its alliance partners in its election list and subsequently the legislature and the executive, and various provincial and local government structures meant that it hit three birds with one stone: ( 1) acquire the votes of constituencies of its alliance partners, (2) acquire the political and technical skills of the leadership and activists of these alliance partners, and (3) put them in a situation where they are obliged to implement co-opt them to neoliberal -capitalist policies and programmes. The ANC has realised that the fact that it is the de facto leader of the alliance and that leaders and activists of its partners are deployed in government or to the business sector on its ticket , reduces their capacity to deviate from ANC policies or to shape its social policy and political economy trajectory. As soon as serious differences on policy occurred, the ANC flexed its muscles and openly told the alliance partners that if they want to pursue a socialist, communist or social democratic agenda , they must do so on their own and not expect the ANC to do so on their behalf. A telling example is when the late President Mandela read the riot act to COSATU at its own congress, telling them that they can’t dictate ANC policies. Mandela rebuffed COSATU’s opposition to GEAR with a resonant declaration that GEAR is and shall remain ANC policy. Another example is the statement of the former President Thabo Mbeki when he ejected SACP leading activist, Madlala- Routledge from his executive for daring to challenge government policies. Mbeki remarked that as member of the executive Madlala-Routledge was bound to the policies and programmes of the ruling party and that she cannot serve in the executive whilst criticising government policies.
As the tensions of being in alliance with the ruling party and serving in the legislature and executive at its bidding increased, the SACP had to deal with the problem of its relationship with state power and the ruling power. In a 2006 discussion document on state power (Bua Komanisi, 2006) , the SACP reaffirmed its position that the chief instrument of achieving the immediate goal of national democratic revolution (NDR) is a multi-class mass movement or liberation front, and that the ANC is such an instrument. The Party further stated that its loyal participation in the multi-class mass movement or liberation front is to represent the working-class as a class that it (SACP) claims to be the vanguard of. It further reiterated the idea of swelling the ranks of the labour movement and the multi-class mass movement is to capture neither the labour movement nor the liberation movement and turn them into its wing but to illustrate that its members are the most ideologically advanced section of the liberation front. (Bua Komanisi. 2006). While asserting that the dominant force in the alliance should be the working-class, the SACP reaffirmed its view that the ANC is the leader of the alliance. The whole question of how to assert the dominance of the working-class and advance the renewal and revitalization of the socialist project chiefly through government policies and programmes dictated by a multi-class mass movement rather than by the community party has provided a theoretical and practical quandary for the SACP.
In addition to asserting that socialism is not realizable in the immediate future (Bua Komanisi, 2006) and resorting to transform from a cadre-based party to a mass based political party, the SACP resolved to assume responsibility for what it refers to as partial power and possibilities at its disposal to make its own contribution to the NDR and to build momentum towards, capacity for and even elements of socialism in the present. (Bua Komanisi, 2006). According to the SACP, this entails doing its best to roll back the empire of the so-called free market and build confidence in the masses to take on the soulless secular religion of neoliberalism. ( Bua, Komanisi, 2006). The reality, however, is that the SACP does not have partial political power. It does not participate in the legislature and the executive or any formal structures and processes of government and the state on its own, based on its own policies and programmes. It has access to political office and participation in government structures and processes as well as platforms for discussing the social policy and political economy of the country at the behest of the ANC. After all is said and done, it is ANC structures and processes that prevail over the social policy and political economy path of the government led by the ANC. Thus far, other than episodic shadow-boxing with the ANC on policy issues and theatrical threats to delink from the alliance, there is not much that the SACP has up its sleeve to make its social and political agenda take root within the ANC and government spaces. In theory, the ANC’s big-tent\broad-church provides an open pulpit or contested terrain but in reality the centrist denomination is the ecumenical council or majlis of the ANC’s broad-church.
Quite a significant number of the top brass of the SACP at national, provincial and local level is entrapped in or is eyeing for full time career in politics (as MPs, ministers, MECs, Mayors, councillors, MMCs etc ) courtesy of the ANC. This opens up possibilities for them to be ensnared in the ANC’s patronage system and therefore unable to significantly raise a socialist \communist voice within the ANC and the government it leads. This arrangement arrests possibilities for SACP, COSATU and SANCO activists within government to always act in conformity with the professed social and political agendas of their organizations. It is noteworthy that the three persons at the centre of the campaign to freeze the wages of workers in the public service and deny them an increase in the name of reducing the so-called bloated public service wage-bill are former shop stewards, trade union leaders and erstwhile firebrand fighters against capitalist super exploitation of labour: President Cyril Ramaphosa, and Ministers, Enoch Gondogwana and Thulasi Nxesi, with the latter being the current deputy national chairperson of the SACP. The phenomenon of former COSATU and SACP leaders religiously implementing neoliberal capitalist and anti-worker policies and programmes once in political office is not new. Among others, this is illustrated by how SACP stalwart, Pravin Gordhan became a monopoly capital-compliant finance minister from to 2020 and is still pursuing free-market oriented agendas in his current position. The very first pronouncements of former General Secretary and current national chairperson of the Party , Dr Blade Nzimande upon being the Minister of Higher Education was that free tertiary university is not possible in the nearest possible future. Nzimande went further to propose that even when free education is possible, it will be a targeted provision, directed solely towards the poor and underprivileged, and not a blanket free education for all. This position is completely opposite to the universal provisioning of free and quality education for all that sincere communists, socialists and even social democrats advocate. It is not unusual to see SACP people chanting the mantra that it is cold outside of the ANC and that only the ANC can facilitate and drive political and social revolution in South Africa. This accounts for the unfolding drama wherein talks of reconfiguring the alliance or even open threats to delink from the alliance prevail towards national general elections and dissipate as soon as the MPs list and the ministers have been announced.
With its rich political history and the tremendous political skills and ideological currency, including its influence on COSATU and SANCO, the SACP has a lot of possibilities to innovatively reposition itself on the political stage. It could opt to contest elections on its own with the support of radical elements within COSATU and SANCO, without ending its political collaboration with the ANC on common issues, even entering into a post-election pact with the ANC. The chances of the SACP tilting the ANC more to the left would be much higher if the two parties are in a political cooperation in which the SACP contested elections on its own. Under such circumstances it would be easier for the SACP to place conditionalities for its political cooperation with the ANC than when it participates in government at the invitation of the ANC. Furthermore, if the SACP contest election on its own but keep its political cooperation with the ANC in the form of an electoral pact or as part of a coalition, it will not necessarily fall with the ANC when ultimately the majority of South Africans opt to ditch the ANC at the polls nor will it be at the receiving end of the fury of the masses should public discontent against the ruling party reach high voltage.
The other alternative is for the SACP to take alliance and coalition-building politics beyond the mass democratic movement, and explore collaborations or unity-in-action with the progressive and radical elements of the broader civic, social and labour movements, and the various green, socialist, and feminist organizations outside of the congress movement. This should include active support of and participation in community and labour struggles. The SACP could play pivotal role in uniting and mobilising COSATU, South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU) etc and in building a popular front that includes political and social movements such as the Bolsheviks Party of South Africa (BSPA), Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP), Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) , Workers International Vanguard Party Land Party, Workers and Socialist Party (WASP), Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA), Abahlali Basemjondolo, Equal Education, Poor People’s Alliance, South African Unemployed Peoples Movement , Sikhula Sonke, Treatment Action Campaign, and the Socialist Group. On the contrary, the SACP often provides the terminology and ideological arguments to the ANC in rubbishing and rebuffing labour and community struggles. A case in point is the blanket generalization and reference to civil society protests as the work of a faceless third-force, agents of regime change , an anti-majoritarian lobby or the so-called anarchist ‘ultra-left.’ Nothing illustrates this like the manner in which the supposed vanguard of the working-class actively and passively endorsed the brute force unleashed on workers at Marikana. It even regurgitated and circulated the narrative of the government above that of the workers about that tragic incident.
The SACP’s religious hold to the notion of the NDR and the ANC as the eternal leader of society or so-called disciplined centre of the left irrespective of its social policy and political economy trajectory and service delivery performance holds it ransom. It disallows it to be innovative, creative and daring in examining the ways of reimagining its organizational form and its engagement with state-power and alliance and coalition politics. Hence, talks about reconfiguring the alliance or repositioning the SACP are confined to ‘modernising’ or refurbishing its alliance with the ANC and related organizations. It is in this sense that Yaqoob Abba Omar likens the SACP’s position on reconfiguration of the alliance with sacrificing divorce for redecoration. (Omar, 2022). Throughout its alliance reconfiguration discourse, the SACP hardly considers exploring some kind of united front beyond the traditional congress movement. It has not given serious thought to tapping into already existing forms of self-organizations, movement-building in South Africa to actively participate in the project of building forms of people’s power beyond the ballot and the mechanics of the government. It hardly engages in theoretical and practical work aimed at linking up with the cooperative and solidarity economy movements and grassroots movements to experiment with cooperative, communal and social forms of production, distribution and consumption as a way of building democracy and socialism from below.
The ideology of the SACP does not prevent it from participating in parliamentary politics on its own. As far back as the 1950s , communists such as Brian Bunting and Sam Kahn represented the then Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) in Parliament. Prospects of the SACP becoming a formidable political force if it were to pursue contesting political power on its own are there. The decline in the electoral support of centrist and conservative parties, the steady electoral performance of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the significant number of votes garnered by civic and social movements who have opted to contest elections on their own indicate the quest of the people for an alternative to the mainstream political parties. Moreover, in municipalities where local SACP branches had the guts to either field independent candidates or contest elections on its own, there are indications of citizen’s positive response to the idea of the SACP standing on its own. A case in point is the fact that in the 2017 municipality bye elections, the SACP was able to secure seats in the Metsimaholo Local Municipality (MLM) and to take the position of the Mayor in a coalition government. This is within the same municipality that in the 2016 local elections the position of Mayor was occupied by the Metsimaholo Community Association (MCA), which gained one seat after contesting elections for the first as a result of pressure from the community that it must contest on its own. This indicates that there are possibilities of the SACP testing and building its electoral strength in the local government sphere, which is effectively the space that is very significant to addressing the immediate and daily needs of communities on the ground for public services and goods. This is also the sphere that experiences an escalating number of protests that are a combination of self-organization and spontaneity which heralded the formation of some of the civic\social movements and new parties currently involved in local government politics. Participation of the SACP in local government politics on its own will enable it to link up with these organizations thereby influencing community struggles. The SACP is not short of the political skills to engage in such a participation and use it to build the capacity, strength, support-base and confidence for the eventual participation in general elections. One reason that a person can think of for the hesitation or even unwillingness of the top echelon of the Party to pursue this option seriously is that perhaps the party officials and its political elites find it too risky. Firstly, too risky for their political careers or government opportunities and positions derived from being in alliance with the ruling party. Secondly, it is risky for the public image that the party receives from being an ally to the ruling party. Thirdly, in the absence of an outright left party or coalition of left parties capable of seriously contesting state power, the split of the votes of the tripartite alliance may lead to South Africa being under the rule of parties on the far right rather than left of the centrist ANC.
Perhaps leadership of the Party believes that the loss of whatever social and political currency or mileage that it derives from its association with the ANC surpasses the possible political gains of contesting elections on its own. However, a revolutionary party cannot afford to be in the comfort zone nor can it afford to be imprisoned in specific organizational form or to be a slave to its own tactics and strategies. A progressive, revolutionary party must have the courage to stride where angels fear to tread and be willing to explore and experiment with new modes and approaches to the struggle. . As Tarrow (1982) posits, the risk-averse behaviour of the communist parties contradicts their claim to be unblemished revolutionaries and results in strategic rigidity, paralysis, and sudden policy reversals. The reality is that a communist party that seeks to seize or shape or influence state power cannot afford to be fixed and rigid in its choice of strategic and tactical alliances nor can it afford to be dogmatic about organizational and institutional forms. In a socio-political and economic environment characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, organizational and tactical agility is a must. At the same time , it is a fact that strategic and tactical reflexes pose a danger to the ideological consistency of an organization, particularly a progressive revolutionary party. Maintaining the balance between organizational, tactical and strategic agility and ideological consistency is probably the biggest quandary that communist parties that participate in parliamentary and alliance \coalition politics face. As a party makes strategic and tactical responses to unfolding events and adapts itself to the ever-changing environment, it is likely to make both gains and losses – politically and otherwise. As much as the party should make all efforts for its essential nature, purpose and message to be the same, it must accept the fact that strategic and tactical responses to prevailing realities are likely to dictate a change in its organizational form.
The problem posed by alliance and coalition politics is that the kind of alliances and coalitions that a party enters may cause a dilution or confusion in its ideo-political identity. The experience of socialist parties within the European Union (EU) highlights this point. The Socialist Group (SG), an alliance of socialist, social democratic and centrist democratic organizations established in 1953, had since 1979 been either the largest or second largest group in the Common Assembly – the precursor of the European Union (EU). In response to the Single European Act of 1987, which facilitated the codification of the European Political Co-operation, the Socialist Group entered into a cooperation with the European People’s Party (EPP) to attain the majority required by the cooperation procedure. Since then, this left-right coalition dominated the Parliament, with the post of President alternating between the Socialist Group and the EPP. ( Hiex et al, 2003, Lightfoot, 2005). After successful efforts of national parties that constituted the Socialist Group to organize in the European region outside of parliament, they established the Confederation of Socialist Parties of the European Community in 1974.The Confederation of Socialist Parties of the European Community was succeeded by the Party of European Socialists (PES) in 1992. Consequently , the parliamentary group was renamed the Group of the Party of European Socialists on 21 April 1993. In 1999 , the Confederation of the Party of European Socialists was renamed Socialist Group in the European Parliament and given a different logo to distinguish it from PES European political party. After the 2009 European election the group’s members of parliament were reduced to a point where it lost the status it gained in 2007 as the second largest party in government. Sammut(2019) attributes the decline of electoral support for the socialists and social democratic parties to factors such as political fragmentation, instability, security issues, low voter turnout, and the rise in nationalism and far right parties. In response to this reality, the Group of the Party of European Socialists sought for additional members in the Democratic Party of Italy, which till then was not an affiliate. As the Democratic Party is a “big tent” centrist party with strong influences of social democracy and the Christian left, a new and more inclusive name had to be found. Thus, the group president, Martin Schulz proposed the name Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats on 18 June 2009. However, confusion on the various abbreviations of the name in English ( i.e PASD, PASDE and S & D Group) led to Schultz declaring that the group would be referred to as Socialists and Democrats until a final title was chosen. Ultimately, the constitutive session of the party, held on 14 July 2009, adopted the formal name as Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and the abbreviation S & D. While as Socialist Group in European Parliament, it was previously associated to the Socialist International, under the name Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, it joined the Progressive Alliance that was established on 22 May 2013 and is a member of the board of the Progressive Alliance.
Whereas the Socialist International (SI) is a political international which seeks to establish democratic socialism, the Progressive Alliance is a political international for progressive and social democratic political parties and organizations. Importantly, the Progressive Alliance was established by former and current members of the Socialist International (SI) as an alternative to the SI. Clearly, the shift from being an associated organization of the SI to being an affiliate of the PA was dictated by the absorption of the Democratic Party and the increase of the number of centrist parties in the alliance. In this sense the tactical manoeuvre of incorporating the Democratic Party within the alliance served to modulate the socialist current and to give more traction to centrist current within the alliance. Thus, the centre-left orientation of the party was the product of efforts to mediate and harmonise the political and social agendas of socialist, social democratic and Christian democratic tendencies within the party. One would also imagine that this would have impacted on its domestic and international policies in the same way that it’s earlier coalition with the right-wing EPP would have constrained the policy choices and decisions of the coalition government. For instance there is likely to be serious tensions in how the socialist, social democrats and Christian democrats would go about in answering and acting upon concerns raised by EU citizens on issues such as security, migration issues and good economic governance. (Sammut, 2019)
In the same way that (Sammut, 2019) propose that social democratic parties in Europe should seriously consider and address other areas outside their traditional principles in order to reconnect with European citizens, the SACP may have to think and act outside their traditional modes of operation to capture the imagination and support of the populace beyond their traditional congress movement and Marxist-Leninist base. The way-forward for the SACP and other non-governing communist\socialist parties should be a comprehensive and holistic strategy that entails active participation in both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary politics to agitate for the socialist cause, expose the inadequacies of reformist projects, build the fighting capacity of the working-class and the underclasses to think and act imaginatively, innovatively and forcefully to advance socialist agenda. This requires that the SACP and other socialist formations free themselves from the vulgar vanguardism wherein the party ordains itself the intellectual sangoma that knows and sees everything about the present and the future and expects or demands the masses only to shout : “siyavuma!” This calls for the SACP and the entire socialist left to demonstrate through social practice and tangible campaigns, programmes and projects that an alternative to capitalism is possible and viable and the way out human misery is the abolition of the current world system based on the production of “value” and its replacement with an egalitarian system that seeks to end the alienation of human beings from their labour, the products of their labour, themselves and fellow beings.
To reduce the possibilities of the type of alliances, coalitions and movement that it becomes part of disenabling its capacity to pronounce its class affinities practically through the policies and programmes it endorse or push, the Party must carefully examine the social and political agendas and class affinities of its political allies and focus its alliance efforts on socialist , green, radical feminists and anarchist organisations before it can think of being in alliance with centrist and right-wing parties. If for whatever reason a communist party enters into a coalition government with centrist and right-wing as part of a socialist alliance, it will have more opportunities to exert a socialist agenda both within and outside of government than if it enters into alliance with a centrist organization on its own. importantly, whatever socialist alliance or alliance of socialists, social democrats and centrists that may emerge , must be based on clear-cut minimum demands. The socialist\communist party must take the lead in constructing\shaping such demands and in monitoring compliance and guarding against deviation from the minimum demands. The Party cannot afford to rely only on parliamentary structures and processes or a “ladies and gentlemen” arrangement\agreement between socialists\communists and centrists or conservatives. It must build its fighting capacity outside of government and therefore be part of a broader movement-building and regular mass action outside of parliament. The social intent of the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary action of a socialist \communist party must be the seizure of political power and using that power to advance a social revolution. Anything else will amount to chasing shadows rather than pursuing and realising the socialist\communist society.
References
Hix, S, Kreppel, A and Noury, A (2001 ) “The Party System in the European Parliament: Collusive or Competitive?” Journal of Common Market Studies Volume 41 issue April 2001 pp 309-331
Lightfoot, S (2005) Europeanizing Social Democracy? The Rise of the Party of European Socialists. London: Routledge
SACP (2006). “State Power”, Bua Komanisi , Volume 5, Issue no 1, May 2006, Special Edition
Sammut, B. R. (2019). The decline of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in European elections (Bachelor’s dissertation).
Tarrow, S (1982) “Transforming Enemies into Allies : Non-ruling Communist Parties in Multiparty Coalitions” The Journal of Politics. Volume 44, No 4 (Nov, 1982) pp 924-954
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