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| Image source: Mail and Guardian (Africa) |
We share this article on the formation of a new workers'
party, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party in South Africa. It makes
important points about the movement, workers and community organizations and
the present situation in that country. The author stresses that NUMSA taking
this step is not only premature but a distraction from what is immediately
necessary and that is the building and strengthening of workers and community
organizations. FFWP has stressed that the present period calls for
activists/socialists to help build a united front, a mass movement uniting all
the various forces fighting the capitalist offensive. It is most likely
that out of such a movement a genuine workers political party will arise and in
which revolutionary socialists can build, in a non sectarian non ultra-left
way, a revolutionary current. FFWP Admin
The
Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP):
A
major distraction
(John Appolis)
1.
Introduction
NUMSA has now formed a party
called the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP) and registered it to
contest the 2019 national elections.
Many leftists have uncritically
embraced the SRWP and joined it. This is not surprising as the formation of a
workers’ party is seen by many leftists as a panacea to all problems
confronting the movement of the masses.
It is my contention that the
formation of the SRWP is a distraction and not the appropriate call in the
present conjuncture. Also the SRWP is being formed with no regard to history,
context and working class experience.
2.
What
does the SRWP say about its formation?
There is no position paper that outlines the perspective on
the SRWP. The only documents that contain some perspective are the Manifesto of
the SRWP and the party’s constitution. However nowhere in the Manifesto is
there any outline of the nature of the present period, the balance of forces,
the state of the working class and its formations. Such an exposition could have
assisted in contextualizing why comrades find that the SRWP is a necessary,
immediate and concrete task for the working class.
What we encounter rather are generalities that could have
been written at any stage of the development of the working class movement. Reading
the Manifesto this is all one could find on this question:
”All
these ills ( of capitalism) and many more, we are convinced, can only be
tackled and abolished by the South African working class organised as a
socialist fighting block [sic]against capitalism, both at home and abroad.
To achieve this organization for Socialism, the working class must play
their vanguard role in the struggle for a Socialist South Africa…..
We
believe only Socialism, as espoused by Karl Marx and developed by subsequent
genuine revolutionary Marxists such as Lenin, is the only viable alternative to
the ongoing global savagery of the world capitalist system.
That
the Programme of the Socialist Revolutionary Party is the abolition of the
supremacy of the capitalist class, the organisation of workers into a
revolutionary working class and the conquest of political power for a truly
democratic, united, free and prosperous Socialist South Africa”. ( my brackets)
In essence what is being said is that:
·
Capitalism is
the problem
·
Socialism is
the answer
·
Workers must be
organised into a revolutionary vanguard party in the struggle for the conquest
of power
This is the sum total of the perspective on the SRWP.
3.
A
problem of formulae
This abstract and almost
religious phraseology, on the need for the workers party is symptomatic of a formulaic
approach to the question of the party. Because Lenin once said that in order to
overthrow capitalism and usher in socialism the working class needs a
revolutionary vanguard party, the task is to build such a party regardless of
time and context. Such an approach absolves the person from taking the time to
make a concrete analysis of whether the conditions (especially the subjective
conditions) are ripe for the formation of a workers’ party.
This formulaic approach to the
party question is also characteristic of propagandistic politics. Propagandism is a type of politics where a group
believes that through calls, it can make the rest of the working class leap
from where it is politically to the group’s “profound and more advanced”
understanding of what the tasks are. Although conditions for the SRWP are
non-existent, it is believed that forming the party now would allow the masses
to jump from where they are in terms of consciousness to where the party
leadership is.
Like all other forms of propagandism, there is something
elitist about this type of politics. Instead of putting at the centre, the
building and strengthening of existing defensive organisations of the working
class such as the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), there is a
pre-occupation with taking the masses across river Jordan – where the task is
to build the SRWP.
There is nothing wrong in discussing the idea of workers
party within the ranks of the working class and poor. In fact it is necessary
to discuss with activists and militants how previously and on different
occasions, the working class in conditions similar to those that working class
face resorted to the establishment of workers parties. These discussions will
have to deal with successes and failure of workers parties to resolve political
problems of the working class. This method is different from the formulaic approach where it has been decided that the solution is a SRWP
and that what only remains is to bring along “uninformed masses” to the party’s
political conclusions.
4. Conditions are not ripe for the SRWP
We have not yet arrived at the point where question of
power is on the agenda. If we understand working class power we would realize
that working class power resides primarily on its mobilised strength. Working
class power also lies on the class’s vision of itself as alternative rulers.
This is how workers and youth arrived in the 1980s to the question of
alternative power.
Working class organisations such as unions, civics, women’s
groups and youth organisations were strong in that period. In addition to
building its mass organisations, the proletariat had also forged organs of
self-rule like street committees and people’s courts. This class - organised in
its mass organisations and active in embryonic organs of self-rule - did not
only rally other oppressed strata, it struggled on the basis of a different
political programme. The working class movement in the 1980s, knew that it
wanted socialism as an alternative economic system.
The struggles against capital and the ANC government’s
neo-liberal agenda are very important but these have not as yet begun to pose
questions of alternative power.
Firstly, the
movements that have emerged remain isolated both in terms of being localised
and in their inability to win over to their banners other oppressed layers.
Although in townships pitch battles have been fought over the years, ideas of
self-rule and self-government have not emerged.
Secondly, there exist no discernible alternative political vision and framework
that the emerging movements and activists share.
Thirdly, the
working class and its new movements have not won recognition among lower
sections of the middle class, rural poor and other township dwellers as
representatives of alternative pole of power. Questions of alternative power
arise in pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods. Presently, we are far from
both. We are neither in pre-revolutionary nor revolutionary situations.
5. The SRWP has no conception of power
Another weakness of the SRWP’s position is that it has no
conception of political power. Although the SRWP’s manifesto mentions the
conquest of power nowhere in it does the SRWP says what it understands as
power. Nowhere does the SRWP define what the sources of working class power,
are. If the SRWP had a conception of power it would not have made its first
port of call the Independent Electoral Commission where it registered to
contest the 2019 national elections.
As stated above the power of the working class lies in its
mobilised strength, its unity in action and in its clarity of political
perspective. The fact that all these sources of power are accumulated in the
context of class struggle, working class power lies in its ability to resist,
disrupt, block and replace plans of its class enemy, the bourgeoisie.
We know that initially, after a period of illusions about
the new government, sections of the working class are waking up. They are
beginning to resist and disrupt ruling class plans. This is an important part
of any re-wakening and the building working class power. But as socialists we
need to be honest and recognise that much effort and struggle is required
before we can say that proletariat has begun to replace the ruling class plans
with its own.
6. The formation of the SRWP is a distraction for
militants and activists and disarms them
The SRWP takes militants away from
the immediate task of building and strengthening the defensive organisations of
the working class and of forging unity across these formations.
The establishment of SRWP takes militants, especially NUMSA
militants, away from building existing fighting battalions of the working class
and poor. The question that comrades must answer is: what will the SRWP do which
other organisations/movements of the working class cannot do?
The SRWP would not be in a position to answer this question
because for the initiators of the new party, the division of labour works like
this: worker parties are for the fight for socialism while mass formations like
trade unions are for defensive struggles. This is an obsolete schema. Leon
Trostsky wrote in the 1930s about how in the period of imperialist decay, to
fulfill their ameliorative tasks mass organisations that were established for
reforms have to take a revolutionary approach to their tasks.
What this means is that the divide between reforms and
revolution, between party and mass organisations becomes blurred under
imperialism and neoliberalism. Mass organisations established to deliver on
their members’ basic needs and demands, need under neoliberalism to be
socialist and revolutionary in their methods. The formulation that ‘unions are
reformist by their very nature’ that SRWP leaders quote repeatedly and which
they attribute to what Lenin said in 1902 does not apply today and under
neoliberal conditions.
But more serious, the obsession with the SRWP separates and
compartmentalises the working class and its organisations. It also takes away
activists from the day’s pressing tasks to build defensive organizations such
as unions and social movements, and to forge unity within and between them.
Presently the most important task of militants is to bring
about the organic unity between the myriad fighting battalions of the working
class and poor – located at the point of production and in the sphere of
reproduction. For the past twenty years of anti-neo-liberal struggle, unity has
been very elusive despite many attempts. There is another chance of building
unity through the process of the SAFTU Working Class Summit (of Movement). This
is what militants are to focus on; and that is why the SRWP is such a distraction.
7.
The SRWP’s disregard of working class history
and experience
A more serious problem with the establishment of the SRWP
is its failure to look at the experiences of the workers and socialist movement
over the last 100 years. Workers political parties have been important weapons
in the arsenal of the workers and socialist movement. Since the 1800s, the
working class formed parties for political representation of the proletariat.
Unions in Europe and countries like Australia were important in the establishment
of labour and other mass social-democratic parties.
Lenin’s intervention through his pamphlet What is to be
done, raised the question of a workers party not only for political
representation but also as instrument for coordination of workers’ struggles.
He also saw the vanguard party as vital for two other reasons. Firstly,
Lenin saw a vanguard party as important for synthesising of workers’
experiences- i.e. theorisation of struggles. Secondly, he saw it as
repository of the class’ historical memory. For Lenin, the party was important
for ensuring political continuity as one generation passes proletarian
experiences to another. Many communist parties were formed in the 1920s to
fulfill these three tasks.
It is common cause that despite the existence of mass
communist parties, many of revolutions of the 20th degenerated. In
fact many mass parties contributed to the degeneration of many revolutions. One
of the pronounced lessons of the 20th century is how possible and
easy it was for revolutions to degenerate when all the three historical tasks
outlined above (coordination of struggle, theorization and ensuring historical
memory and continuity) were concentrated in one working class organ.
The concentration of all the tasks in the political party
was tragic. It meant that with the degeneration of the party, there were no
other working class organs and institutions to act as counterweight to the
retreat. As revolutionaries we should learn from these experiences of failed
revolutions and the contribution of parties to such failures. Location of the
three revolutionary tasks in multiple institutions of the working class may be
a necessary, even if not watertight, guarantor against degeneration of
revolutionary experiments and working class parties.
The second count in which the SRWP’s lack of history of the
working class movement fails them relates to numerous revolutions and
breakthroughs that took place in the 20th century without mass workers
party. Here we refer to Cuba, Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique and many other
revolutions in the African continent.
8.
Confusing
form and substance
One of the basic tenets of Marxism is for us to distinguish
form from substance. This is what the formation of the SRWP misses. The Workers
Party is the organisational form to carry out three of historical tasks –
coordination of struggle, synthesis of its experiences and provision of
historical continuity and memory. The party form is also the embodiment of the
proletariat’s political independence.
The party is therefore the organisational form and the
substance are the tasks outlined above. There is, however, nothing that says
that these tasks cannot be fulfilled outside the organisational form of the
party. We have shown how in certain countries and circumstances other
formations and fronts executed the historical tasks associated with the party
form. Our focus must be on the tasks and not the organizational form!
9.
The
key task of the period – build the defensive organisations of the working class
into revolutionary organs and forge unity
No revolutionary will disagree that the three tasks
historically associated with the party form are still relevant today. Recent experiences
in South Africa show that questions of working class independence, coordination
of struggle, drawing of lessons, theorisation of working class struggles and
the passing of these experiences from one generation to the other are
pertinent. It is the tasks of all revolutionaries to ensure that that these
tasks are executed.
Where such an execution of the tasks takes place is
something that cannot be determined through old schema as the SRWP does.
Whether this will be in a party form or in a front or any other combination of
working class institutions cannot also be predetermined. The task at hand is to
see that all three historical tasks are executed.
Mass organisations like the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF)
and Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in their heydays have shown
that this is possible. Always being on the search for ways of linking up
struggles is key. Drawing lessons from our struggles is a beginning of
theorization. Political and Marxist education needs to be intensified. Passing
the experience of previous struggles to new layers is what we need to do all
the time. If we do all of this we will be building existing defensive
organisations of the working class into revolutionary organs. This is not less
revolutionary as the SRWP initiators would like us to believe.
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