by Weizmann Hamilton, 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The ANC has always portrayed itself as a multi-class party with the leadership\ninsisting that, whilst it was biased towards the poor, it represents equally\nthe interests of all South Africans, rich and poor, white and black, workers,\nprofessionals, petty bourgeois, capitalists, liberals, democrats and\nrevolutionaries. The composition of the [1955] Congress of the People [held in\nKliptown] reflected this. In fact, astonishingly, even the Nationalist Party,\noppressors of the people and architects of the recently introduced apartheid\nsystem, was invited but declined to attend. The NP preferred not to participate\nin a charade of political \u201chappy families\u201d concentrating its efforts instead on\nthe more serious business of trying to sabotage the Congress. The Congress was\na convention of conflicting class interests and competing ideologies with no prospect\nof it emerging with a Charter that spoke unambiguously in the name of the\nworking class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus the Charter included nationalisation clauses but not a word either\nabout capitalism or socialism. The leadership genuinely believed for a long\nperiod that nationalisation was essential if the aspirant black capitalist\nclass was to take control of the commanding heights of the economy. Its vision\nwas of a capitalist economy in which the black capitalist class would occupy at\nits summits a position corresponding to the weight of the black population in\nsociety. Freedom for the aspirant black capitalist class meant a predominantly\nblack capitalist class instead of one dominated by a white minority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The contradictions in the contributions, and the fierce debates that\nraged at the Congress were rooted in the opposing class positions from which\nthe worker delegates and the capitalist delegates approached the nature and\ntasks of the struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How worker delegates saw the Charter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Congress of the People provided the first opportunity for\ntesting the balance of power in the relationship between the black working\nclass and the petty bourgeois leadership of the ANC since the ANC had turned to\nthe masses for support in the struggle against apartheid. Despite the common\nopposition to apartheid, the process of drafting the Charter revealed the\nconflicting aspirations of the different classes at the congress. ANC leader\nBen Turok, who was responsible for drafting the economic clauses, confirms that\nthe process was controversial with many delegates feeling that the Charter was\nnot radical enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although the word \u201csocialism\u201d does not appear anywhere in the\nCharter, records of the proceedings show that the interpretation of the\neconomic clauses by the working class delegates was in direct contradiction to\nMandela\u2019s. As the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC \u2013 predecessors to the\nDemocratic Socialist Movement and co-founders of WASP \u2013 pointed out in its 1982\npublication SA\u2019s Impending Socialist\nRevolution<\/em>, the mover of the clause: \u201cThe people shall share in the\ncountry\u2019s wealth\u201d explained it to the delegates as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt [the Charter] says the ownership of the mines will be transferred to the people. It says wherever there is a gold mine there will no longer be a compound boss. There will be a committee of the workers to run the mine. …wherever there is a factory and … workers are exploited, we say that that the workers will take over and run the factories. In other words, the ownership of the factories will come into the hands of the people. … Let the banks come back to the people, let us have a people\u2019s committee to run the banks.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The next speaker, representing trade unions in Natal, spelled out\nwith complete clarity the meaning the workers attached to the clause:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNow comrades, the biggest difficult we are facing in South Africa is that one of capitalism in all its oppressive measures versus the ordinary people \u2013 the ordinary workers in the country. We find in this country, as the mover of the resolution pointed out, the means of production. The factories, the lands, the industries and everything possible is owned by a small group of people who are the capitalists in this country. They skin the people, they live on the fat of the workers and make them work, as a matter of fact in exploitation. …this is a very important demand in the Freedom Charter. Now we would like to see a South Africa where the industries, the land, the big business and the mines, and everything that is owned by a small group of people in this country must be owned by all the people in this country. That is what we demand, this is what we fight for and until we have achieved it, we must not rest.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The vague contradictory nature of the formulations in the Charter\nreflected the success of the capitalist leadership in diluting the more radical\nsocialist aspirations of the workers. From the standpoint of the worker\ndelegates, the most important conquest was the nationalisation clause. In spite\nof the fact that the Charter does not call specifically for the abolition of\ncapitalism, the sweeping nationalisation the Charter calls for at least poses\nthe question of the abolition even if it does not answer it. The omission of\nthe word socialism is not accidental, it reflects the dominance of the\ncapitalist delegates at the Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How the capitalists saw the Charter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Building on their success in purging the Charter of the\nrevolutionary strivings of the workers, the leadership was at pains, throughout\nthe entire period after the adoption of the Charter up to the end of apartheid\nand beyond, to clarify what they understood the Charter to stand for. The most\nstriking of these \u201cclarifications\u201d was given by Mandela himself in an article In our Life Time<\/em> published in Liberation<\/em> in June 1956. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhilst the Charter proclaims democratic changes of a far-reaching nature it is by no means a blueprint for a socialist state but a programme for the unification of various classes and groupings amongst the people on a democratic basis. Under socialism the workers hold state power. They and the peasants own the means of production, the land the factories and the mills. All production is for use and not for profit. The Charter does not contemplate such profound political and economic changes. Its declaration \u201cThe People Shall Govern!\u201d visualises the transfer of power not to any single social class but to all the people of this country be they workers, peasants, professional men or petty bourgeoisie.<\/strong> (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is true that in demanding the nationalisation of the banks, the mines and the land, the Charter strikes a fatal blow at the financial and gold mining monopolies and farming interests that have for centuries plundered the country and condemned it people to servitude. But such a step absolutely imperative and necessary because the realisation of the Charter is inconceivable, in fact impossible, unless and until these monopolies are first smashed up and the national wealth of the country turned over to the people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe breaking up and democratisation of these monopolies will open up fresh fields for the development of a prosperous non-European bourgeois class. For the first time in the history of this country the non-European bourgeoisie will have the opportunity to own, in their own name and right, mines and factories, and trade and private enterprise will boom and flourish as never before.\u201d<\/strong> (emphasis added) <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Of all the repeated \u201cclarifications\u201d by the ANC leadership,\nMandela\u2019s is the clearest declaration of the separate and in fact opposing\nclass interests of the black working class and that of the aspirant bourgeoisie\nthe ANC was founded to represent. What is spelled out in this article is that\nthe leadership had no quarrel with \u201cfree enterprise\u201d, that is capitalism. Their\nobjection was that the black bourgeoisie had been denied the opportunity to\noccupy the same position as white monopoly capital at the summits of the\neconomy. The presentation of what were in fact the separate and distinct\naspirations of the black bourgeoisie as those of \u201call the social classes\u201d is a\ndeception that the bourgeoisie everywhere has been obliged to resort to\nthroughout its history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea that all social classes own equally the commanding heights\nof the economy under capitalism is a complete falsehood. But the bourgeoisie is obliged to present the\nrelationship between the classes in this manner because, as a tiny minority in\nsociety, they can fulfil their aspirations only by marshalling the support of\nthe \u201cpeople\u201d, that is the working class masses who alone have the capacity to\nshake the old order. This deceit is not unique to SA. It is the method not only\nof the colonial bourgeoisie but in fact of the bourgeois even during the rise\nof capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Charter\u2019s shortcomings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Charter has obvious shortcomings. It does not provide for the\nright to strike. There are no demands for the eradication of the oppression of\nand discrimination against women, LGBTQ people, nor any on the environment,\ndemands that have risen to the top of the working class agenda today. But these\nshortcomings can be easily remedied. \nThis would make the Freedom Charter even more radical. In fact its\ndemands are already so radical that it is impossible for all of them to be\nimplemented within the framework of capitalism. The full implementation of the\nCharter requires the overthrow of capitalism and the socialist transformation\nof society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Charter\u2019s most serious shortcoming, however, lies not so much in\nthese omissions, but in the fact that it is completely silent on the fact that\nits demands are incompatible with capitalism. The Charter fails to spell out\nwhat measures would have to be taken to enable the working class to carry out\nthe expropriation of the capitalist class and to create basis for its own rule.\nThe Charter also does not explain that the nationalisation of the commanding\nheights of the economy is the only means by which a future government would be\nable to place the resources in its hands to enable it to fulfil all the other\ndemands like free education and health and to substitute the anarchy of the\nfree market with a democratically planned economy. Radical as the demand for\nthe nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy are, the Charter\nomits to qualify the nationalisation demand by linking it to workers control\nand management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nationalisation and Socialism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What the worker delegates to the Congress expressed could be\nrealised only through the overthrow of capitalism even if that was not stated\nexplicitly. It is therefore entirely incorrect to argue as is done in the 60th\nAnniversary of the Freedom Charter publication produced by Workers World Media\n(WWM) that the adoption of the nationalisation clauses was of little\nsignificance as the idea of nationalisation was widely accepted at the time. It\nmay be true that following the Second World War many capitalist governments in\nthe West implemented nationalisation to such an extent that as much as 60% of\nthe world\u2019s economy was under state control at one time in that period as WWM\npoints out. But these capitalist governments acted under the pressure of a\nmassive post-war movement of the working class, and given the economic crisis\nand the radicalisation of the working class were compelled to take measures to\ncontain the movement \u2013 to make concessions from above to stop revolution from\nbelow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To dismiss the nationalisation clauses of the Charter as if the\ndelegates were merely dressing themselves up in the latest policy fashion\ngarments, is to dismiss the outlook of the worker delegates. It also tears the\nCongress from the historical context of the political situation prevailing in\nSA at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Congress of the People occurred against the background of the\nbiggest mass movement of the black oppressed since the colonisation of the\ncountry and was itself the largest democratic gathering ever. What the worker\ndelegates showed at that time already was the understanding that the struggle\nfor national liberation was bound up inextricably with the struggle against\ncapitalism. The outlook of the workers delegates could only mean in practice\nthat the attainment of the demand for national liberation and democracy would\nrequire the method of class struggle against the capitalist class whose\nexploitation of their labour in the workplace was enforced and protected by the\nsame white minority regime that held them in subjugation as blacks through\napartheid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The revolution the workers had in mind could therefore not stop once\nwhite minority rule and apartheid had been overthrown but would pass on\nuninterruptedly to the overthrow of capitalism as well. This is the meaning of\nthe theory of permanent revolution as first explained by Marx and Engels \u2026 and\nelaborated by Trotsky in the context of the Russian Revolution a half-a-\ncentury later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this schema\nnationalisation was absolutely critical to the fulfilment of the aims of the\nrevolution. That the bureaucracies in\nRussia (after the degeneration of revolution) China and Eastern Europe after\nthe second world war rested on state-controlled economies does not in any way\ndiminish the importance of nationalisation as a policy indispensable to the\nability of the working class in its revolution to break the power of the\ncapitalist class, establish its rule and proceed with the thoroughgoing\ntransformation of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SA Communist Party<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The attitude that nationalisation is neither here nor there would\nhave meant not taking the side of the worker delegates at the Congress, and\nturning one\u2019s back against the entire proceedings. It would have the same\neffect as the actual role played by the SACP at the Congress, which, instead of\nbolstering the demands of the workers and filling them with revolutionary\ncontent, held the workers back, herding them like cattle behind the petty\nbourgeois on the basis of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). That the\nSACP was unable to participate in the Congress as a party because it was banned\nwas in fact no barrier to its participation. It had many delegates who\nparticipated as ANC members. The NDR dictated that the SACP members should\nparticipate in the ANC not to promote the interests of their party and the\nproletariat in whose name it spoke, but those of the capitalist leadership of\nthe ANC. Upon entering an ANC meeting room they dutifully left the SACP hats\noutside. This meant in fact bolstering the right against the left at the\nCongress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Any communist party worthy of the name would have used the Congress\nto ensure that the Freedom Charter contained clauses that made explicit what\nwas implicit in the worker delegates\u2019 minds ensuring the inclusion of socialist\nclauses. A genuine communist party would have called for the substitution of\nthe Charter\u2019s liberal preamble with one that places the working class at the\nhead of the nation, and outlines a vision of society based on the transfer of\nthe wealth of the country to the people by the nationalisation of the\ncommanding heights of the economy under the democratic control and management\nof the working class. A socialist preamble would go further to explain that\nthis would require the overthrow of capitalism, the smashing of the state and\nthe creation of a state of workers democracy by replicating the workplace\ncommittees the worker delegates referred to by the worker delegates, in\ncommunities and cities linking them country-wide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But imprisoned in the Stalinist two-stage theory, the SACP became\nthe political handmaidens of the ANC bourgeois, providing them with the\ntheoretical justification for their determination to remain firmly within the\nframework of capitalism and therefore, in the final analysis, collaborators of\nthe capitalist class and imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1980s revolutionary movement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The real question that should be asked is why if, even in its most\nradical moment, when it had inscribed into the Charter demands for the\nnationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy for the purpose not of\noverthrowing capitalism, but deracialising it, the ANC eventually abandoned\nnationalisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The capitalist class, who are in the business of protecting their\nwealth, power and privilege and keeping their boots on the necks of the\nworkers, take a far more serious attitude to the question of nationalisation\nthan the comrades of WWM who think that it but one policy option amongst many\non the supermarket shelves of capitalist rule. When as they have done under the\ncurrent Great Recession, occasionally resort to nationalisation, it is only a\ntemporary measure to rescue ailing companies at the expense of the state only\nto hand them back to private owners for a song as soon as possible afterwards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is an entirely different matter when the nationalisation demand\nis demanded by their class enemies, the working class. Like bloodhounds, the\ncapitalists detected the scent of working class influence in the\nnationalisation clauses of the Charter, despite the camouflage of its woolly\nphraseology. They take account not only of who makes such demands, but also of\nthe circumstances under which they are made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The negotiated settlement signed at the Congress for a Democratic\nSouth Africa (Codesa) did not spring out of a clear blue sky driven by a regime\nand a capitalist class who had undergone a conversion on the road to Damascus\nalong which they had discovered that black people had human rights and that\ndemocracy may not be such a bad thing after all. It was the culmination of\nsecret talks with Mandela in prison and with selected ANC leaders abroad\ninitiated by business, apartheid intelligence services, and representatives of\nthe Afrikaner elite under the hot breath of the insurrectionary movement\ndeveloping in SA at that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 1973 Durban strikes, the countrywide revolt in 1976 detonated by\nthe Soweto Uprising, the unity of workers and youth in the 80s, the birth of\nUDF in 1983, the acquisition by the mass movement of an increasingly\ninsurrectionary character as the youth and workers moved blended into one\nbetween 1984-86, overcoming the repression\nof both the partial state of emergency in 1985 and the permanent one in 1986,\nand most decisively of all, the birth of Cosatu in 1985, concentrated minds of\nthe bourgeoisie wonderfully. They could see the writing on the wall for white\nminority rule. What alarmed the strategists of the bourgeois most of all was\nthe consciousness of the black working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How the capitalist evaluated the situation is revealed in the\ncomments of the capitalist press of the time. \u201cThe two major demands of the\nFreedom Charter are that the \u2018people shall share in the country\u2019s wealth\u2019 and\n\u2018the land shall be shared among those who work it\u2019. The fact that businessmen\nsought yesterday\u2019s talks, reflects the deep concern felt by South African big\nbusiness at the increasing radicalisation of black thinking and the growing\nrejection of the free enterprise system. What the businessmen wanted to know\nwas the degree to which to which this view was shared by the ANC leadership. \u201d\n(Financial Times<\/em> UK 14th September\n1985) <\/p>\n\n\n\n A year later the same paper quoted Anglo American director Zac De\nBeer, one of the participants in talks with the ANC, as saying: \u201cWe all\nunderstand how years of apartheid has caused many blacks to reject the economic\nas well as the political system. But we dare not allow the baby of free\nenterprise to be thrown out with the bathwater of apartheid\u201d (Financial Times<\/em> UK 10th June, 1986). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus whilst hypocritically wringing their hands over the\n\u201cunfortunate\u201d measures the state had to take to restore stability through the\nState of Emergency, big business undertook the political Great Trek to Lusaka,\nDakar, London and Washington to engage the ANC leadership. The strategic aim of these discussions was to\nemasculate the Freedom Charter by exerting relentless pressure on the ANC to\nabandon nationalisation and thereby turn the ANC into their conscious\ncollaborators in diverting the revolution and preserving capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever the intentions of the ANC leadership, were they to attempt\nto implement the nationalisation clauses of the Charter, what would be posed is\nthe overthrow of capitalism itself. They would not be able to proceed in that\ndirection in any case without the mobilisation of the masses. But since the\nintention of the aspirant black capitalist class is not to create a socialist\nsociety, the commanding heights of the economy shall have been taken out of the\nhands of white monopoly capital only to be placed in those of the black\ncapitalist class. The working class would be expected after acting as the foot\nsoldiers of the black bourgeoisie in the NDR, to take their place at the bottom\nof the social pyramid as before and to serve their new masters. That is a\nscenario that would have resulted either in an uprising against the ANC\ngovernment or the ANC itself would have been pushed to the left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This was far too risky for both the ANC petty bourgeois leadership\nas well as the ruling capitalist class. The strategist of capital understood\nthat the ANC, in adhering to nationalisation meant no harm to capitalism \u2013 a\nsystem they had wanted to be part of from the day it was formed in 1912. The\nproblem was that the ANC would be able to carry out the policy of\nnationalisation only by expropriating the capitalist class. This would not have\nbeen possible through a mere legislative process. The masses would have had to\nbe mobilised to overcome the inevitable resistance of the capitalist class who\nwould have resorted to armed force to protect their wealth and property. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the context of the uprisings taking place and the radicalisation\nof the masses, the perspective would be one of civil war. As the flames of\nrevolution reached higher the Financial\nMail<\/em> (6th December, 1985) warned:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cInterventionist military action in a last ditch attempt to retain the status quo… has not been discounted in some quarters. Just which would be the worst case scenario \u2013 a dictatorship of the Left or of the Right \u2013 is open to conjecture. Few, however, who have any insight into the ideological drift of the African National Congress Freedom Charter and its talk of nationalisation, have any serious doubts on that score. Anything would be preferable to seeing SA\u2019s economy decimated by such crude attempts at \u2018wealth redistribution\u2019 implicit in the doctrine of the Charter.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The bourgeois would have had no hesitation to try and drown the revolution\nin blood. But that was not the preferred first option of the bourgeois. Given\nthe racial balance of forces, and the temper of the masses who, far from being\ncowed by the State of Emergency reacted to it as to the whip of the\ncounter-revolution, intensifying the struggle, a military solution was too\nrisky. Its outcome was not at all a certainty, could spark racial civil war and\ninevitably lead to SA\u2019s further isolation internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only way in which the ANC would then be able to carry through\nnationalisation would be by the mobilisation of the working class, an armed\ninsurrection and the seizure of power by force. Uncertain of the outcome of\nsuch a scenario, the bourgeois concentrated on ensnaring the ANC leadership in\na negotiated surrender, secure in the knowledge that if the ANC leadership\nfaced a choice between leading a socialist revolution and collaborating with\nthem, the ANC would choose the latter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The strategist of capital thus set about the task of co-opting the\nANC, ensnaring it in negotiations that culminated in the betrayal at Codesa. In\na massive propaganda campaign negotiated settlement was presented as a\n\u201cmiracle\u201d by the media in SA and internationally and as a \u201cdemocratic\nbreakthrough\u201d by the SACP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ANC capitulates<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This pressure paid off handsomely. The leadership went into headlong\nretreat with the SACP providing the theoretical cover for this cowardly\ncapitulation. By October of that year ANC president Oliver Tambo gave British\nimperialism the assurance in an address to the Foreign Affairs Committee in the\nHouse of Commons of the British parliament that the Freedom Charter \u201cdoes not\neven purport to destroy the capitalist system.\u201d Earlier that month Zac De Beer\nrecalled that Tambo had said that \u201clarge sectors of the economy would be left\nopen to private enterprise.\u201d (Guardian\nWeekly<\/em> 5 October 1985) In an interview with Anthony Heard, Cape Times<\/em> editor, Oliver Tambo said\nthat \u201cEveryone\u2019s property will be secure.\u201d By 1987 the South African Financial Mail<\/em>, reporting on the Dakar,\nSenegal talks, reported that the ANC delegation \u201chad agreed that there was a\ndistinction between ownership of minerals, which belonged to the nation, and\nthe right to extract it which must be purchased. This section might have to be\nreworded, an ANC representative said.\u201d (14th August, 1987)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Comrade Ronnie Kasrils in an otherwise courageous and commendably\nhonest acknowledgment of the betrayals in the negotiations in the preface to\nthe latest edition of his biography, Armed\nand Dangerous<\/em> attributes what happened to the naivety of the leadership in\nthe Codesa negotiations. This is a mistaken view. The foundations of the Codesa\nbetrayals were embedded in the SACP\u2019s theoretical DNA and the class character\nof the ANC. The SACP\u2019s 1962 programme spells this out very clearly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe immediate and imperative interests of all sections of the South African people demand the carrying out of\u2026 a national democratic revolution which will overthrow the colonial state of White supremacy and establish an independent state of National Democracy in South Africa. The main content of this revolution is the national liberation of the African people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is in this situation that the Communist party advances its immediate proposals before the workers and democratic people of South Africa. They are not proposals for a socialist state. They are proposals for a national democratic state.<\/strong>\u201d (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Although SACP general secretary Joe Slovo was to recognise the\ninextricable link between the struggle for national liberation and the\noverthrow of capitalism in his \u201cNo Middle Road\u201d, it was the same Slovo, in an\naddress to the board of Woolworths in the early 1990s who argued that\n\u201cnationalisation would be extremely costly… [would] be met by capital flight\nand skilled manpower and possibly lead to economic collapse. He likened\nnationalisation to \u201c\u2019consigning the height of our economy to a commandist\nbureaucracy\u2019\u201d (WWM, 60 Years of the\nFreedom Charter<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ANC on the other hand was never a workers party, but a party of\nthe black middle class and the aspirant black capitalist class. The leadership\nrepeatedly made it clear that it never stood for socialism from Mandela in 1956\nto Thabo Mbeki whose address to the 1998 Cosatu congress was but one example.\nAfter the adoption of gear Thabo Mbeki went so far as to say \u201cCall me a\nThatcherite\u201d. The ANC\u2019s commitment to capitalism was complemented by the SACP\u2019s\nchampioning of the two-stage theory on which the concept of the National\nDemocratic Revolution is based. In combination they provided the political\nbasis for the betrayals consummated at Codesa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Total capitulation followed rapidly after the initial \u201cre-interpretations\u201d\nof the Charter. The Charter was abandoned even before the 1994 elections and substituted\nwith the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) stripped of the nationalisation\nnotions so offensive to the capitalists. If the ANC was on its knees at Codesa,\nby 1996, barely two years into democracy, it was on its belly licking the boots\nof white monopoly capital and imperialism after jettisoning the RDP and\nadopting the neo-liberal GEAR programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the fact that the outcome of the deliberations at the\nCongress of the People had been manipulated to dilute the Freedom Charter, denuding\nit as much as possible of the revolutionary socialist aspirations of the worker\ndelegates, the mobilisation for the Congress was much more democratic and based\non inviting workers and activists contribute towards its contents and to debate\nthem at the event itself. In sharp contrast GEAR was developed by a team of\nexperts from the World Bank and selected ANC leaders trained in the ideas of\nthe Washington consensus. It was adopted by cabinet without even the ANC NEC\nbeing consulted and presented to the ANC conference in Mafikeng a year later as\nan accomplished fact merely for rubber stamping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/FEATURED-IMAGE-Freedom-Charter-medium.gif\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n