In 1950 the Communist Party, faced with banning under the\nSuppression of Communism Act, dissolved itself as an open organisation – but\nwas reconstituted underground in 1953. Those active workers who remained in the\nCP, or joined it underground in the 1950s, did so because they expected a lead\nfrom it in the struggle to transform society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After 1950, states a CP historian: “Party members were to\ncontinue working in the national organisations, the trade unions and other\nbodies, and to help bring into being the Congress Alliance headed by the\nAfrican National Congress.” [1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The assumption of a mass character by the “national\norganisations” was, as has been explained, a consequence of the\nopportunities missed by the CP itself to build a mass workers’ party. Indeed,\nthere had been a conscious abdication by the CP of its position in favour of\nthe ANC. Thus: “There were periods, during the war years especially, when\nAfricans flocked to the Party in preference to the ANC, only to find themselves\nordered to join the Congress and make it a strong and independent body.” [2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Through the 1950s, CP leaders and members had an increasingly\ninfluential position within the Congress movement. But what did the CP\nleadership see as the role of the Party in Congress?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its approach was typified by the Party’s general secretary, Moses\nKotane, whose official biographer quotes ANC leaders, among them O. R. Tambo,\nas follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lutuli\u2026on difficult questions on which he wanted\nad\u00advice bypassed his officials and secretaries and sent for Moses because he\nhad discerned this loyalty in him\u2026Even when Lutuli was confined to the\nGroutville area in Natal, he would send for Moses to explain or discuss some\nissue he was uncertain about\u2026Lutuli had so much confidence in Kotane that he\nwould not make up his mind on controversial problems until he had discussed\nthem with Kotane. Lutuli used to say: ‘Kotane is the leader of the workers. We\nmust hear what the leader of the workers has to say about this.’ [3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n What position?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What position did Kotane, or other CP leaders, express on the\npolicies pursued by Lutuli and the middle-class Congress leadership? His\nbiographer is quite clear: “Whatever the Communists did was done through\nthe channels of the Congress movement and in pursuit of policies laid down by\nthe Congresses. Apart from one or two minor instances, nothing was done by the\nCP which was in conflict with Congress policy.” [4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n This reflected the fact that in practice the policies of the CP\nleaders were<\/strong>no different. How, then, did\nthe CP explain its distinct existence as a party?<\/p>\n\n\n\n An independent Marxist-Leninist party was\nessential,” asserts the official history of the SACP, “both to fulfil\nits long-term<\/strong>mission of winning a socialist\nSouth Africa based on workers’ power, and also to ensure the success of the immediate<\/strong>fight for national liberation\nand democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Fifty Fighting Years<\/em>, p.97. Our\nemphasis.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, surely, to achieve success, the “immediate struggle for\ndemocracy” required a conscious struggle for workers’ power!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Socialism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is true that the attainment of socialism<\/strong> – meaning a society of abundance in\nwhich all inequalities, classes and the state itself can wither away – was a\nlonger-term perspective. A democratic workers’ state in South Africa could only\nlay the foundations for a socialist society to develop in association with\nadvances of the workers’ revolution internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But to play with words in this typical manner of the CP – to separate the struggle for democracy from\nthe struggle of the working class for power against its oppressors and\nexploiters<\/strong>–\nconceded the leadership of the democratic struggle to the middle class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kotane, O. R. Tambo is reported as saying,<\/p>\n\n\n\n could have used his position to underline\nattitudes which were specific to the Communist Party, to speak from a\nparticular position and remind everybody about the ultimate objectives of the\nCommunist Party. But he never did that. He debated from what seemed to be an\nexclusively ANC standpoint\u2026 [5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In this, Kotane only faithfully carried out the policy line of his party, and indeed of Stalinism internationally. Its effect was to conceal not only the need for workers’ power, but even the very idea of a different, socialist form of society, from the mass of the workers searching for answers in the school of struggle. [1]<\/a>\nBrian Bunting, Moses\nKotane, South African Revolutionary<\/em>, London, 1975, p. 165.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a>\nIbid.<\/em>, p. 175.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/a>\nIbid.<\/em>, p. 230-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [4]<\/a>\nIbid.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n [5]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n\n\n\nContinue to Chapter Five<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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