{"id":249,"date":"2019-08-27T09:08:35","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T07:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?page_id=249"},"modified":"2020-08-17T12:24:42","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T10:24:42","slug":"has-the-numsa-moment-passed","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?page_id=249","title":{"rendered":"Has the Numsa moment passed? (2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

26 April 2016<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Weizmann Hamilton<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National\nUnion of Metalworkers of South Africa\u2019s, (Numsa) December 2013 Special National\nCongress was historic. In announcing that it would not campaign for the ANC in\nthe 2014 general elections, denouncing the SA Communist Party and withholding its\nCosatu subscription, Numsa took the first political step on to the other side\nof the historic fault line created by the Marikana massacre. It meant the end\nof Cosatu\u2019s historical role as the political centre of the working class, the\ndemise of the Tripartite Alliance and cleared the way for a political\nalternative for the working class. The \u201cNumsa moment\u201d had arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nSNC adopted resolutions committing Numsa to building a United Front (UF), Movement\nfor Socialism (MfS) and a workers party to be launched in time for the 2016 local\ngovernment elections. Three years later, unfortunately, none of these have been\nbuilt. It is now legitimate to ask the question: has the \u201cNumsa moment\u201d passed?\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well\nbefore the SNC, WASP contributed towards the debates in Numsa, supporting its efforts\nto have Cosatu reclaim its political and class independence. But we pointed out\nthat Cosatu\u2019s degeneration had developed to the point that reclaiming its\noriginal traditions of solidarity, workers control and socialism would require\na new federation. We argued that the main strategic task was the creation of a\nmass workers party on a socialist programme to unify the working class within\nand across the three main theatres of struggle \u2013 in the service delivery protests,\nin the struggles of tertiary education students and in the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We supported\nthe proposed role of the United Front as the unifier of community and workplace\nstruggles and that of the Movement for Socialism to unite all the left\nformations seeing in this the assembling of the forces for a mass workers party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nwere conscious of the fact that the Numsa leadership had received their\n\u201csocialist\u201d education in the SACP\u2019s Stalinist school for the falsification of\nMarxism. But to have stood aside from these developments and criticise from the\nsidelines would have been the height of sectarianism. It would have meant\nturning our backs not only on the workers in Numsa, but the millions of workers\noutside both it and Cosatu looking for direction towards their political and\nclass emancipation from the political prison of the Tripartite Alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nMarx pointed out, we have to look to the lines of struggle calculated to move\ndecisive sectors of the class into action \u2013 into movement against the\nestablished powers of the system (state, the bourgeoisie and their agents\nincluding the labour lieutenants inside the workers\u2019 movement).  Every genuine democrat and socialist had a\nduty to contribute towards the efforts to ensure the SNC fulfilled its\npolitical potential and this historic opportunity was seized. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst\ncriticising the Numsa leadership, we participated in efforts to bring the UF\nand MfS to life, linking up with unions that had broken from Cosatu to support\nthe initiative for a new socialist trade union federation.  We called upon Numsa to take its rightful\nplace in WASP and to occupy a position within it that corresponds to its size\nand political weight within the working class \u2013 a call, in other words for\nNumsa to take over WASP even if that meant that we would be a minority within it.               <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite\nthe leadership\u2019s prejudices against Trotskyism, WASP was warmly welcomed by\nNumsa workers and shop stewards, recognised as a \u201cfriend of Numsa\u201d and was the\nonly party given speaking rights at the SNC 2014 elections commission. We\nwarned that it was a mistake for Numsa to delay the workers party\u2019s launch to\n2016. This was to demand that history should march not to its own rhythm but to\nNumsa\u2019s drumbeat. The 2014 elections demanded that a workers party be launched\nimmediately.  Cosatu\u2019s 2012 shop steward\npolitical survey showed overwhelming support \u2013 67% – for a workers party even\nbefore Marikana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Failure\nto launch immediately would mean the loss of an historic opportunity. Numsa\ncould not turn the hands of the clock of history. Should Numsa block the\nhistoric process from flowing through it, history would find another conduit. The\nSNC 2014 elections commission unanimously supported our proposal that the SNC should\nadvise workers to vote for a party whose programme conformed to their criteria to\nevaluate new political formations. Although WASP met these criteria \u2013 it is working\nclass, democratic, socialist with a track record of struggle \u2013 Numsa limited\nitself to ruling out Agang and the EFF, remaining silent on WASP. Unfortunately\nthe commission\u2019s recommendation that the proposal be referred to plenary was overruled,\nthe chairperson arguing that it would amount to calling for a vote for WASP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WASP\nretained its orientation to Numsa after the 2014 elections. But the leadership\nstood in the path of the implementation of the SNC resolutions on the UF, MfS\nand the workers party. The leadership opposed the UF adopting socialism as its\nideology, made it clear that it was not to consider itself a political party\nand encouraged it strongly to adopt the Freedom Charter as its programme. At\nthe same time the UF leadership was allowed to fall into the hands of a largely\nideologically demoralised middle class leadership hostile to socialism, far\nremoved from the working class and unable to connect with service delivery\nprotests or link them to the organised labour movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nwarned that the imposition of the Freedom Charter would be divisive, arguing\nthat the best way to overcome the divisions between the pro- and anti-Freedom\nCharter positions would be to acknowledge, as Numsa had done, that it was not a\nsocialist programme but to extract from it those elements compatible with\ntransitional socialist demands, like nationalisation, free education, housing\nand health and a 40-hour working week thus converting it into a Socialist Freedom\nCharter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nall the provinces UF structures voted overwhelmingly for socialism. Faced with\nthe loss of ideological control, the leadership repeatedly postponed the launch\nof the UF until it led to demoralisation. It is of the greatest significance\nthat very few Numsa members and shop stewards bothered to attend UF meetings\nthroughout, ignoring all appeals by the leadership.  There are no UF structures on the ground today.\nAll that is left of it is the National Coordinating Committee \u2013 a head without\na body.  The UF has been left to wither\non the vine of malign neglect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nMfS conference, when eventually called, resolved to establish a steering\ncommittee to work out a roadmap towards the launch of a workers party. WASP\u2019s\nproposal that such a party should be a mass workers party on a socialist\nprogramme and should contest the elections, with the election of all\nrepresentatives subject to the right of recall and an income limited to that of\nthe average wage of a skilled worker, was agreed unanimously. The Numsa leadership\nsimply ignored the resolution and failed to convene the steering committee.\nThey unilaterally established a MfS Media Committee which started producing an online\njournal with the Stalinist ideological line supported by the Numsa leadership.\nThis was done without any consultation with the Left formations that had\nparticipated in the MfS conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nleadership has ensured that the resolution on a workers party does not escape\nfrom the central committee where, starved of the oxygen of open democratic\ndebate within the membership and with left forces in the MfS, it is trapped in\na sterile, meaningless disagreement  over\nwhether it should be a \u201cmass\u201d or \u201cvanguard\u201d party. The dominant Stalinist\nfaction in the Numsa leadership is instead campaigning for the outlandish idea\nthat the workers party will be built by 100 hand-picked shop stewards \u2013 the \u201cRed\nOne Hundred\u201d who will be schooled in \u201cMarxism\u201d through \u201ccadre\u201d schools from\nwhere they will presumably emerge with certificates to present themselves to\nthe working class as leaders of a party that workers have had no role in\ncreating. To invite the Chinese Communist Party \u2013 a one party totalitarian dictatorship\ncommitted to the restoration of capitalism \u2013 and Samir Amin who argued that\nsocialism is off the agenda for a thousand and possibly two thousand years \u2013\ndemonstrates a light mindedness on something as important as theory.       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nformation of new trade union federation is an objective necessity precipitated\nby Numsa\u2019s expulsion. But we are concerned that the ideological confusion and\npolitical methods of the Numsa leadership will handicap the new federation\u2019s\npotential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nNumsa mountain has roared… and produced a mouse. The sum total of the SNC\nresolution is a UF head without a body; the MfS replaced by a media committee\nthat meets every Monday morning to read the bourgeois press to identify issues\nto write articles on… for the bourgeois press; the workers party to be formed\nfrom the top by the \u201cRed Hundred\u201d graduates of a school of dubious Marxism who\nwill initiate the formation of a workers party from the top; and the \u201cNumsa\nnine\u201d reduced to two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nNumsa leadership\u2019s approach to the SNC resolutions has its origins in their\nideological commitment to the Stalinist ideas of the SACP which have fatally\ncontaminated all three SNC initiatives.  Their\nstubborn adherence to the notion that the National Democratic Revolution is the\nshortest road to socialism is merely the reincarnation of the discredited\ntwo-stage theory that has resulted in catastrophic defeats for the workers\nrevolution internationally in China, 1925-27, in splitting the working class in\nGermany clearing the path to power of Hitler and the horrors of the Second World\nWar, the defeat of the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39, the genocidal decimation\nof the Indonesian Communist party in 1965 with the slaughter of over one\nmillion communists and  trade unionists,\nthe triumph of Pinochet in Chile 1973 and last but not least the betrayal of\nthe working class in SA over the past 22 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nargue that socialism will come later is to raise the question as to which class\nwill be in power in the meantime under the so-called \u201cnational democratic\u201d\nregime. A revolution that sets itself the task of establishing \u201cnational\ndemocracy\u201d before workers democracy and socialism can have the practical result\nonly of the preservation of the dictatorship of the capitalist class \u2013 a regime\nthat would differ from its predecessor only in name. Far from such a \u201cnational\ndemocratic revolution\u201d constituting the \u201cshortest road to socialism\u201d, it will\nbecome a gigantic fortress from the walls of which the cannons of the same\nnational democratic regime will be trained on the working class. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nin essence would be the difference between a NDR regime and the one of the past\ntwenty two years? For all their strident denunciation of the SACP, the Numsa\nleadership is charging it with failing to vigorously implement a bankrupt\nprogramme. The Numsa leadership\u2019s real aim is a \u201cHerstigte\u201d SACP \u2013 the true\ndefenders of the Stalinist faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From\nbankrupt ideas flow false methods. In keeping with Stalinist traditions the\nleadership has ensured that it maintains an iron grip on the formations that\nthe SNC resolutions envisaged to ensure that no ideas that question theirs is\ntolerated.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nthe ANC implodes, the need for a mass workers party has become even more\nurgent. It has the potential for providing a home for hundreds of thousands of\nworkers and may have been delayed by Numsa\u2019s abdication of its historic\nresponsibility, but it remains firmly on the agenda. WASP will continue to\ncontribute towards its establishment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

26 April 2016 by Weizmann Hamilton The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa\u2019s, (Numsa) December 2013 Special National Congress was historic. In announcing that […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":426,"parent":212,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-249","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"_hostinger_reach_plugin_has_subscription_block":false,"_hostinger_reach_plugin_is_elementor":false,"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1941,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/249\/revisions\/1941"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}