{"id":2095,"date":"2020-08-22T15:18:20","date_gmt":"2020-08-22T13:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?p=2095"},"modified":"2020-09-17T10:35:03","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T08:35:03","slug":"open-letter-part-2-the-crisis-in-saftu-the-struggle-for-class-independence-the-workers-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?p=2095","title":{"rendered":"OPEN LETTER TO SAFTU | PART 2: The Crisis in Saftu, the Struggle for Class Independence & the Workers Party"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dear comrades,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Part I of our Open Letter<\/a> we put forward our views on what we believe must begin to emerge from Saftu\u2019s 25 August NEC in order to take forward working class struggle against the unprecedented health, economic and political crisis. But the fact that the NEC meeting is taking place almost a full five months<\/em> into this crisis cannot be passed-over in silence. Why has there been such a delay in convening the leadership? The truth is that Saftu has been missing in in<\/em>action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do not mean that all of Saftu\u2019s affiliates have been standing still in this time. Many have taken-up the challenges presented by the new era. For example, Nupsaw has won an important victory over the Gauteng Government. Thousands of Community Health Workers now have permanent jobs on more than double their current salary. But the purpose of organising together<\/em> in a federation was to unite<\/em> the different struggles of the working class and knit them together into a single movement<\/em>. This has not been done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saftu\u2019s creation in 2017 was a breakthrough. It was a crucial landmark in the realignment of the trade union movement that was set in motion by the mineworkers and the 2012 Marikana massacre. Most of the forces which founded Saftu came from splits within Cosatu. These were driven by the rank-and-file\u2019s growing opposition to the leadership\u2019s policies of class collaboration<\/em>. These were summed-up in Cosatu\u2019s Tripartite Alliance with the ANC and SACP \u2013 a mechanism for the policing of the working class and their subordination to the interests of the bosses. The founding of Saftu was an important organisational consolidation of the striving by hundreds of thousands of workers for their organisational, political and ideological class<\/em> independence. The creation of a workers\u2019 party would be the highest expression of this process at this point in the class struggle.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The road to Saftu\u2019s founding was not straight-forward or free from confusion. The split of Cosatu between 2012 and 2015 was drawn-out. The mineworkers, whose action set the process into motion, have remained outside the federation, divided between the NUM, still in Cosatu, and Amcu which is unaffiliated. Cosatu has survived and still dominates the public sector, at least for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many future Saftu leaders were pushed along by the mood rather than consciously leading it. This was reflected in some of the early debates in the new federation, for example, the confusion revealed in what exactly the, then popular, \u2018buzzphrase\u2019 \u201cindependent but not apolitical\u201d meant in practise. Some in the leadership understood it to mean the effective abandonment of the political struggle \u2013 the federation would comment<\/em> on political issues but not intervene in them directly except to the extent that it coincided with \u2018trade union\u2019 issues and struggle. This would mean the continuation of the dominance of the political parties of the class enemy. The worker membership however, clearly understood something very different. The new federation\u2019s \u201cindependence\u201d was from the capitalist parties <\/em>that had wrecked Cosatu \u2013 the ANC and SACP. The positive side of this rejection, as we will explain further below, has been overwhelming support for the creation of a workers\u2019 party amongst Saftu\u2019s members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unintended consequence of Saftu\u2019s lack of ideological and political clarity is that it has acted as a political and organisational life-support machine for Cosatu (and other federations). The Cosatu rank-and-file remains unconvinced that Saftu has drawn in full the correct political and ideological conclusions from the experience of the Tripartite Alliance. Thus, with gritted teeth, they prefer to tolerate the devil they know, rather than cast their fate to the winds of one they do not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, Saftu had a promising start. In April 2018, it announced its arrival into the arena of struggle with a successful Section 77 strike. This was followed shortly after by the July 2018 Working Class Summit (WCS). This suggested that the new federation had quickly re-discovered, as the early Cosatu had understood before the capitalist ANC \u2018captured\u2019 it, the inseparable connection between the struggle in the workplace and the political struggle. Building on the Saftu founding congress, the WCS adopted a resolution in favour of creating a mass workers party on a socialist programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But momentum was lost in 2019. The promised Section 77 follow-up action was postponed again and again, then abandoned with no explanation, even as the ANC government stepped up its attacks. A meeting of Saftu\u2019s Central Committee in November 2019 produced a declaration of over 4,500 words\u2026 that led to no decisive action whatsoever! Then the pandemic hit. But there was no significant response from Saftu \u2013 nothing serious to suggest that the federation was preparing to rise to its feet and meet the challenges of the new period. Instead the paralysis in the leadership that was beginning to be visible continued and deepened<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the last NEC meeting in mid-March, as the State of Disaster was being declared, Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim instigated an attack on Saftu general secretary Vavi, accusing him of \u201cnot being accountable\u201d. This attack was the culmination of a whole series of manoeuvres by a grouping around comrade Jim in the Numsa and Saftu leaderships. These go back to at least 2017 (and probably before). Many workers will be shocked to learn that comrade Jim attempted to block Vavi\u2019s nomination to the position of Saftu general secretary at Saftu\u2019s founding Congress. Numsa\u2019s regional leaderships had to intervene to over-rule comrade Jim to allow comrade Vavi\u2019s nomination to go through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, comrade Jim\u2019s method at the Congress was not based on tabling political differences in front of the Numsa and Saftu membership in a transparent, democratic and comradely manner, but by means of personal bureaucratic manoeuvres. This conduct had the potential to collapse the launch of the new federation. This would have been a crime against the working class, and set back workers unity and the struggle for the restoration of organisational, political and ideological class independence for a length of time impossible to estimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Lost Opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to the March NEC, comrade Vavi convened a meeting of representatives of the Working Class Summit\u2019s Steering Committee which included amongst others Nupsaw. This meeting agreed that comrade Vavi would refer to the Saftu NEC, for endorsement and actioning, a proposal to call jointly for a public sector general strike to: (i) demand the full wage increase due to the public sector the government had threatened not to pay,  (ii) the implementation of the Labour Court judgement Nupsaw had won recognising Gauteng Community Health Workers as permanent employees, and (iii) the permanent employment of EPWP workers whom the Gauteng Provincial Government was threatening to dismiss. The public sector general strike date was pencilled-in for 30 April 2020 and was to be mobilised for through mass rallies in all major metros on Sharpeville Day, 21 March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the CHW workers have since started receiving public sector pay rates, the government has carried out its threats to tear up the public sector wage agreement and the over 3,000 Gauteng EPWP were dismissed, thrown out onto the streets, with many not even receiving the insulting R350 Social Relief of Distress grant or food parcels. Weakness invites aggression. That this provocation by the ANC government \u2013 an invitation to the capitalist class to mount a full-scale offensive on the entire working class \u2013 has been allowed to be carried through without Saftu lifting so much as its little finger, has been interpreted precisely as weakness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead Saftu has been outflanked by Nehawu\u2019s programme of action, an affiliate from the very Cosatu that Saftu had been established as an alternative to. Of course this is a desperate attempt by the Nehawu leadership to restore its credibility in the eyes of its members. It was the Cosatu leadership that helped set a precedent for the imposition of pay deals if negotiations did not go the government\u2019s way. The government\u2019s insolence derived from Cosatu\u2019s failure in 1999 to call action when the government walked-out of the negotiations and unilaterally imposed an offer the unions had rejected. Demands by delegates to Cosatu\u2019s Special Congress for a 48-hour strike was defused by SACP leaders in senior positions in the unions, including Nehawu. Again, weakness invites aggression. The 2020 imposition is far worse than that of 1999, making it the worse attack on public sector workers since 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Confirming Cosatu\u2019s real role in the Tripartite Alliance, the Nehawu leadership hastily withdrew legal action against the government over it failures to protect health workers during the pandemic. The Nehawu leadership, like loyal class collaborators, then attempted to bail-out government by announcing that they would finance PPE supplies from the Nehawu Investment company!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The motives of the Nehawu leadership are clear. They recognise the burning anger of their members. They are attempting to defuse it through limited sectoral action, starting in the public health laboratories, instead of mobilising its entire membership, all of whom have been affected by wage theft, and a significant number, both directly and indirectly, by the PPE failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nehawu leadership\u2019s call to action nonetheless reflects the mood not just of its membership but of the entire public sector workforce. Saftu should appeal to Nehawu for joint action. Moreover, the conditions exist today for the unification of public sector workers in a manner that combines the workplace and political issues on a higher level than was the case, for example, in the 2007 and 2010 public sector strikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the 2007 public sector general strike, then Cosatu president Madisha provided the ANC government with a political alibi in defence of the continuation of the Tripartite Alliance. He claimed the strike was against the \u201cANC as government and employer but not as a political party\u201d. This time the waves of revulsion unleashed by the Covid tender corruption are directed at both sides of the political split-personality Madisha attempted to separate the ANC into \u2013 as government and<\/em> as party. The anti-ANC hashtags that have gone viral on social media reflect the disgust flowing through society and has reignited the desire for an alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Wasted Energy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saftu\u2019s March NEC was an opportunity to anticipate and get ahead of these developments. In other words set the tone of the public sector fightback and position Saftu to lead it. The NEC could and should have prepared a counter-offensive along the lines proposed by the Working Class Summit\u2019s Steering Committee: a public sector general strike on 30 April to be mobilised for by mass rallies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead the March NEC discussed comrade Jim\u2019s allegations against comrade Vavi. <\/strong>Not only were the issues in the public sector at boiling point, but the bosses had already begun an offensive against the working class with wide-scale retrenchments. The meeting closed without discussing or agreeing anything substantive to take working class struggle forward. Instead of mobilising the working class for a counter-offensive against the bosses and the government the NEC spent its time constructing a \u2018compromise\u2019 agreement to use Saftu\u2019s Political & Ideological Commission to investigate \u2013 i.e. conduct a witch-hunt against \u2013 the federation\u2019s own general secretary!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this \u2018agreement\u2019 solved nothing because both sides then retreated into their bunkers. The de facto <\/em>consequence of comrade Jim\u2019s attack was to park the federation on the sidelines. Instead of co-ordinating the response of its affiliates to the historic capitalist crisis sparked by the pandemic, Saftu\u2019s role was limited to issuing press releases and hosting Zoom \u2018worker conversation\u2019 workshops, turning the federation into a virtual talk-shop lamenting the crimes of the capitalist class and its ANC political management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belatedly, some NEC members began pushing for the NEC to be convened and start providing leadership. Scandalously, the response of Saftu president Mac Chavalala, aligned to comrade Jim, was to issue a letter postponing any meeting<\/em> of the NEC until after<\/em> the pandemic was over! When this will be is anyone\u2019s guess. This was a bureaucratic move that sought to formalise the suspension of the federation through the suppression of its democratic structures. In response to this obstruction light-minded threats were made to split the federation by NEC members aligned to comrade Vavi. A constitutional crisis was developing over who had the right to call the NEC and whether or not Numsa would participate. It seems that the day was saved at the last moment by a revolt within Numsa itself that called comrades Jim and Chavalala to heel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are happy to be corrected if any of the details in our account are wrong. Indeed we would welcome it because we find it absolutely incredible that Saftu was brought to the edge of a disastrous split without the membership even being made aware that there was a crisis. Let the leadership speak-up and account to the members for its conduct.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The SACP II-Grouping<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Numsa leadership is not a granite block. There are different groupings and tendencies within it. Unfortunately, a still too dominant tendency is the one that was schooled and politically trained by the SA Communist Party. Whilst the comrades have broken from the party<\/em>, they have not rejected it poisonous methods and ideology<\/em>. Comrade Jim must be counted amongst this \u201cSACP Mark II\u201d-grouping. Whilst clinging to any SACP baggage it is impossible to lead the working class in the successful reclaiming of its organisational, political and ideological class independence. On the contrary, it prepares those that do cling-on for the role of frustraters of the process. This is exactly what has happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responsibility for the paralysis in the Saftu leadership over the past five months lies overwhelmingly with the SACP II-grouping. We are not praise-singers for comrade Vavi and have many important political differences with him. But if anyone in the Saftu leadership is guilty of \u201cnot being accountable\u201d it is that SACP II-grouping\u2019s supporters in the leadership. We believe that comrade Vavi is being punished for his refusal to allow Saftu to be hijacked behind that grouping\u2019s political project, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP). Workers who responded to the call for a new federation have not rebelled against the conversion of Cosatu into the ANC\u2019s labour desk only to allow Saftu to become the SRWP\u2019s labour desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the SACP II-grouping which has bulldozed the federation\u2019s structures and ignored resolutions on the vital issue of Saftu\u2019s role in building a mass workers party. It is the SACP II-grouping which cooked-up the SRWP behind the back <\/em>of Saftu after <\/em>it had already<\/em> agreed on a process to take this issue forward, and then taken it a decisive step further with the convening of the Working Class Summit a year later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Saftu founding congress adopted a resolution making clear its intention to begin a process that would lead to the launch of a workers\u2019 party. Numsa, the new federation\u2019s biggest affiliate, voted in support.  To give effect to this resolution, a Political & Ideological Commission was established. The PIC convened a Working Class Summit in July 2018.  A thousand delegates representing 147 community, trade union and other organisations adopted a resolution to establish a mass workers party on a socialist programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Numsa WCS delegation was selected to ensure a significant SRWP \u2018delegation within a delegation\u2019. This group disrupted proceedings in commissions demanding to take the positions of chair, rapporteur and<\/em> scribe. They demanded to know why a workers party was being discussed when one already existed in the form of the SRWP \u2013 a party that was to be launched only five months later<\/em> in December 2018. When delegates objected to the conduct of the SRWP group on day two, comrade Jim himself rose to his feet threatening to take the entire Numsa<\/em> delegation out of the Summit. Had this completely irresponsible threat been carried through, it could have collapsed the Summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is to comrade Vavi\u2019s eternal credit that he intervened to save the Summit from collapse. The WCS remains the most important political gathering in the democratic era and arguably since the launch of the UDF in 1983, bringing together under one roof, organised workers, working class communities, and youth for the first time since the fall of apartheid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MWP considers the obstruction of the unfolding of the workers\u2019 party process on the part of the SACP II-grouping as arguably the most serious of their transgressions against both the Numsa members and the workers\u2019 movement as a whole.  It is through adherence to the basic principle of democratic centralism that workers unity in a strike action is ensured. Workers debate, for example, the question of embarking on strike action, take a vote and act on its outcome in unison. The minority is bound by the decision of the majority. If the minority defies the decision of the majority, unity in action is impossible, enabling the bosses to split the workers, and render action ineffective. This is regarded as strike breaking, but this has been the method of the SACP II-grouping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Historic Struggle for Class Independence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WCS resolution to establish a workers party did not spring out of a clear blue sky. Its historical significance lies in the fact that it was the political expression of a process of ideological clarification that the most advanced layers of the organised working class had been undergoing over decades \u2013 in the struggle against capitalism that commenced under colonialism and apartheid and continues under democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The individual partners in the coalition of forces now in power \u2013 the ANC, SACP and Cosatu \u2013 in the ANC-led Tripartite Alliance, over the years, took it in turns to oppose and obstruct the formation of a workers\u2019 party. But the reality of events \u2013 the collision of class forces side-by-side with the struggle for national liberation \u2013 shaped the consciousness of the working class. It hammered home the lesson that the method of the national liberation struggle was the class struggle; that the only class that could successfully lead it was the working class; that therefore the national liberation of the oppressed black majority could only be achieved through the simultaneous struggle against apartheid and capitalism and the socialist transformation of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ANC and SACP fought ferociously against this approach to the developing revolution. To the inseparability of the struggles for national liberation and socialism, that experience at every turn confirmed in the minds of the working class, foretold clearly in Trotsky\u2019s theory of Permanent Revolution, they counterposed the National Democratic Revolution, which was predicated on capitalism\u2019s preservation by separating the revolution into distinct democratic and socialist stages (we will return to this in Part 3 of this Open Letter).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future class antagonisms implied in a \u201cnational democratic\u201d society that would necessitate further working class struggle after liberation was foreseen by the advanced layers of the working class. In his speech to the 1982 congress of the Federation of South African Trade Unions (Fosatu), a predecessor of Cosatu, secretary Joe Foster warned that the working class must not repeat the mistakes of the working class on the African continent by supporting national liberation movements that would betray them once they had taken power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developed to its full conclusion, the logic inherent in Foster\u2019s warning was of the necessity for the working class to organise its own party. But Foster himself did not develop the idea to a conclusion. It is not clear that he himself understood the implication of his warning. Despite the fact that the idea of an independent party of the working class was only implicit<\/em> in Foster\u2019s speech it was interpreted by the SACP as an explicit<\/em> call for a workers\u2019 party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In self-righteous indignation, the SACP launched a ferocious political assault on Foster accusing him of attempting to usurp the role of the SACP as the vanguard of the working class. The similarities between the role of the SRWP at the WCS thirty-six years later are unmistakeable. WCS delegates were reprimanded for wanting to \u201cre-invent the wheel\u201d of the workers party when one already existed in the form of the SRWP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Foster\u2019s speech, however, the ANC\/SACP leadership undertook a tactical U-turn. They switched from denouncing the emerging independent trade unions as \u201cyellow\u201d, to a tactic of political seduction. For the majority of the workers that were building these unions, and would later come together to create Cosatu, there was no separation between the workplace struggle and the political struggle against apartheid. The instinct of the organised workers\u2019 was to wage the political struggle through their own class-based organisations. This the ANC\/SACP leadership could not allow. If the organised working class was going to engage in the political struggle it had to be on their terms and not an independent class basis. The insertion of the word \u201ccongress\u201d into the name of the federation born in 1985 signalled the political capture of the trade union movement. To ensure that there was no confusion over which of the new partners was in the ascendancy in this supposed \u2018Tripartite\u2019 alliance of equals, the alliance was to be \u201cANC-led\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Tripartite Alliance rested on social forces with irreconcilable class interests: the ANC, representing the interests of the black capitalist class on the one side of the class barricades, and Cosatu, those of the working class on the other. Within the framework of capitalism, which moreover was, and is, in an epoch of decline, it was never going to be possible to meet even the most basic expectations of the masses. A showdown, and ultimately a rupture between these social forces was inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Historical Significance of the WCS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WCS was not the first attempt to break from the political hegemony of the ANC-led Tripartite Alliance. As early as 2003 Cosatu\u2019s 8th<\/sup> congress, under increasing pressure to respond to the growing discontent of its members and the working class more broadly, adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of Coalitions against Poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MWP\u2019s predecessor, wrote in October 2005, that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With red banners outlining demands for housing, jobs, a basic income grant, land, health care and housing, the meeting was composed of mainly genuine grassroots organizations, reflecting the self-organisation of working class communities against the impact of government\u2019s disastrous neo-liberal capitalist policies on their lives. Most significant of all, was the sizeable turnout Cosatu shop stewards in a meeting free of traditional ANC struggle songs, ANC t-shirts or slogans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The media reported that the launch of the Western Cape Coalition represented the first step in the revival of the United Democratic Front \u2013 the precursor to the re-emergence of the banned ANC that had itself been launched in Mitchell\u2019s Plain in the Western Cape in 1983. In response to this the Tripartite Alliance immediately launched a propaganda campaign denouncing it as an attempt at \u201cregime change\u201d. To ensure that it would not become the precursor to the establishment of a political alternative to the ANC, all further launches were cancelled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But 2005 was a political yesterday. The WCS met in qualitatively different circumstances. The WCS united similar forces around a common purpose: for mass action against unemployment, poverty and inequality, agreeing that their eradication requires the overthrow of capitalism and the socialist transformation of society. It was therefore entirely correct for comrade Vavi to warn that anyone who walked-out of the Summit, and collapsed it, would be judged harshly by history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Numsa\u2019s 2013 Special National Congress<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, we have come to expect a \u2018rule or ruin\u2019 approach from the SACP II-grouping. Their often radical rhetoric hides, what in practice, has amounted to years of obstruction to the forward march of the working class. Their record is one of endlessly manufacturing delays and obstacles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Numsa\u2019s Special National Congress (SNC) in December 2013 was historic. Following in the footsteps of the mineworkers\u2019, the metalworkers of Numsa attempted to retie the knot of the post-apartheid generation to that of their pre-1994 counterparts. In 1993 the Numsa congress had adopted a resolution to establish a workers\u2019 party to contest the 1994 elections. This resolution was submitted to the Cosatu congress later that year but defeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately the SNC fell significantly short of its full historical potential. The launch of a workers\u2019 party that had been widely expected, not just within Numsa, but within the wider working class, did not take place. The 2014 elections were to take place against the background of the Marikana massacre and what it had demonstrated about the ANC\u2019s social character and allegiance to the capitalist class. Instead, the Numsa the leadership announced merely that it would not support the ANC in the 2014 elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In and of itself this decision represented a major departure from the policy Numsa had followed since 1994. It represented a repudiation of the very purpose Cosatu served in the Tripartite Alliance as the political defence force and election machine of the capitalist ANC. It thus placed Numsa on a collision course with the Tripartite Alliance that would culminate in its expulsion from Cosatu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet what did this decision amount to in practice in 2014? It was clear that the metalworkers intended the Congress to act immediately <\/em>on the issue of a workers\u2019 party. By not doing so the Numsa leadership in fact aided the ANC\u2019s return to power. The announcement that Numsa would withdraw support from the ANC amounted to no more than bestowing official recognition on a process that was under way in any event<\/em> \u2013 the gradual decline of the ANC\u2019s electoral support. That withdrawal of support from the ANC would have continued regardless of the Numsa leadership\u2019s decision. We warned that voters, angry at the ANC, especially after Marikana, would want to punish it by voting for the likes of the DA and EFF, even if they did not support their policies. This prediction was confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only did the SNC delay action on Numsa initiating a workers\u2019 party, but co-operation with the Workers and Socialist Party (Wasp) electoral initiative<\/a> was also blocked. Wasp had the backing of many of the leaders of the mineworkers\u2019 strike committees that had led the 2012 strike wave and was initiated a year before Numsa\u2019s SNC. The MWP\u2019s predecessor had been a founding affiliate. The Numsa leadership continued to refuse co-operation even after Wasp proposed that Numsa in effect \u2018take it over\u2019 and field its own candidates under the party\u2019s umbrella. This would have made a united and powerful working class electoral challenge in 2014 possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the SNC\u2019s \u20182014 Elections\u2019 Commission, on behalf of Wasp, Weizmann Hamilton, today general secretary of the MWP, proposed that instead of the boycott implied in the SNC position, delegates should be advised to apply the evaluation criteria used in the Congress documents to analyse, and dismiss, parties such as Agang and the EFF, to decide which party to vote for. This recommendation to the Commission was agreed unanimously and enthusiastically by the delegates. However, the chairperson over-ruled the decision. He argued that it amounted to a call to vote for Wasp, and was beyond the commission\u2019s remit, and so refused to forward the commission\u2019s recommendation to plenary. The next day Wasp\u2019s representatives were unceremoniously thrown out of the conference by venue security. Our message was too popular amongst the delegates who were demanding literature, and even t-shirts. Our presence threatened to upset the leadership\u2019s efforts to take the heat and urgency out of the workers’ party issue. Thus the SNC concluded without achieving the very thing it had been called for \u2013 the establishment of a workers\u2019 party. It was now to be ready only for the 2016 local government elections instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

UF & MfS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SNC was the high water mark of the \u2018Numsa moment\u2019. But instead of seizing the \u2018moment\u2019 the leadership was given by the members, an historic opportunity was squandered. Instead, under the SACP II-grouping\u2019s leadership, Numsa members have been led along a tortuous path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Careful to only begin acting on the SNC resolutions after<\/em> the 2014 elections had come and gone, next came the convoluted (and unnecessary) United Front (UF) and Movement for Socialism (MfS). Ultimately these were a distraction from the creation of a workers\u2019 party that dispersed and dissipated the energies of activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Movement for Socialism conference was convened in April 2015 and unanimously adopted a resolution in favour of the establishment of a mass workers party on a socialist programme. The conference was concluded by Numsa\u2019s deputy general secretary, comrade Karl Cloete, who announced the formation of a steering committee to work out a \u2018road map\u2019 toward its launch. This was never convened and was never heard of again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United Front suffered a similar fate. Its national launch was postponed for a second and final time in June 2015 after structures had been established in every province except KZN. The overwhelming majority of provinces defied the entirely undemocratic and dictatorial instructions of the Numsa leadership\u2019s SACP II-grouping not to discuss participating in the elections, socialism or a workers\u2019 party.  As we wrote at the time<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The debates on the key issues \u2013 whether the UF should be socialist, stand in the elections or adopt the Freedom Charter \u2013 that were to have continued at the launch, have animated activists, providing a sense that the UF is at least, and at last, beginning to take the necessary steps towards clarifying its ideological, programmatic and political character.<\/p>

\u2026The majority of provinces have come out overwhelmingly in favour of socialism and prefer the UF to stand in the elections. These developments indicate that the UF still has the potential to achieve the objectives for which the Numsa SNC gave birth to it \u2013 the unification of struggles of working class communities and of the working class in the workplace.<\/p>Massive Opportunities for Working Class Struggle Despite United Front Postponement<\/a> (27 June 2015<\/em>)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Having ensured the SNC concluded without a workers\u2019 party, the SACP II-grouping was not going to allow it to emerge through the MfS or the UF. Despite the crushing of the debate in the UF on the questions of a party and standing in elections, out of the blue, completely bypassing the UF\u2019s admittedly weak structures, the UF\u2019s banner was used to contest the 2016 elections in Nelson Mandela Bay in \u2018splendid isolation\u2019 from the rest of the movement. It seems this was a favour from the SACP II-grouping to assist the political ambitions of a disgruntled ANC faction. The results were terrible in any case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The launching of what would become Saftu was repeatedly delayed. At Saftu\u2019s launch in April 2017, as mentioned, comrade Jim fuelled divisions by trying to block Vavi\u2019s nomination. In addition, the issue of a workers\u2019 party was kept off of the agenda. It was only a speech from comrade Weizmann Hamilton that placed this vital issue before the delegates who enthusiastically embraced it, just as Numsa\u2019s members had three-and-a-half-years earlier at their SNC when comrade Hamilton raised it there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The SRWP<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was only at this point that the SACP II-grouping began to rush the SRWP into existence with comrade Jim as chairman. The zig-zag from foot-dragging to a sprint is explained purely by the SACP II-grouping\u2019s desire to cut-across<\/em> any initiative that might come from Saftu, and, later the WCS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facts are that the SRWP was created, if not in defiance of, then in complete disregard for, the resolution of Saftu\u2019s Founding Congress to establish an inclusive party uniting workers, communities, youth and students. The SRWP\u2019s launch was not mandated either by Saftu affiliates or indeed Numsa members or worker structures themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Far from aiding the process towards a mass workers party, the SRWP has obstructed it. The SACP II-grouping in the Numsa leadership have thus twice \u2013 first by an act of omission \u2013 the passive withdrawal of support for the ANC, and then by one of commission \u2013 the creation of the SRWP \u2013 stood in the way of the formation of a genuine, democratic socialist  mass workers party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of the SACP II-grouping’s stumbling and fumbling over recent years confirms a deeply bureaucratic and undemocratic approach. They are not motivated by advancing the interests of the working class except in as far as this coincides with defending their positions in Numsa. Dominating the emerging new workers\u2019 movement is seen as crucial auxiliary to this. The way in which the SRWP was launched was the culmination of this wrong approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any genuine workers\u2019 leader should have been thrilled by the Saftu and WCS resolutions committing to help bring into existence a mass workers party. They signalled the willingness of broader working class forces to be part of such a project. But the SACP II-grouping did not view it this way. They saw it as a threat and so has acted to paralyse both Saftu and the WCS to prevent either from moving forward. Even in the SRWP, the rank-and-file played no more than a token role, if that, in the development of its programme, policy, manifesto or the election of its leadership \u2013 all of which were prefabricated and imposed at the December 2018 founding  conference sparking walk-outs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Numsa members should be insulted by the SACP II-grouping\u2019s attempts to portray the creation of the SRWP as a fulfilment of the mandate of the 2013 SNC. This is nothing but \u2018spin\u2019 to try and disguise that the SRWP was imposed on Numsa itself. Leave aside that Numsa held a Congress in December 2016 where the workers\u2019 party was only touched on in the vaguest terms, the manner in which a leadership carries forward a mandate must<\/em> take account of changes in the situation. In 2013 Numsa was still inside Cosatu. Saftu did not exist. The WCS had not taken place. There was absolutely no \u2018mandated\u2019 reason that the SACP II-grouping had<\/em> to proceed in the bureaucratic way that it did. Working with<\/em> Saftu and the forces assembled by the WCS to unite<\/em> the broadest possible<\/em> sections of the working class for the creation of a workers\u2019 party was the only course of action genuinely<\/em> in keeping with the spirit of the SNC\u2019s mandate.The SACP II-grouping made a choice<\/em> not to do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if the manner in which the SRWP was launched was the culmination of the SACP II-grouping\u2019s obstructionist approach, it also seems to be its high point. Now the fall to Earth is beginning. There is growing dissatisfaction with their conduct within Saftu, Numsa and even the SRWP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

SRWP Crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite efforts to fill the SRWP with \u2018loyalists\u2019, some genuine activists did find their way into the party. The 2019 election results would have been a huge disappointment to them. Having given the leadership the benefit of the doubt over how to proceed with the party there is now a questioning and re-examination underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A widespread complaint within the SRWP is its complete inactivity and lack of campaigning. Its highly abstract \u2018revolutionary propaganda\u2019 is completely disconnected from the real political landscape and the events and issues shaping the lives of the working class. What is<\/em> produced is completely superficial. There is no effort to apply Marxism to the analysis of events to guide working class struggle. The SRWP has no publications we are aware of. Its website is a set of dead stone tablets that the working class must either accept or not. This is then sprinkled with r-r-revolutionary postures on international issues. This approach can never develop a cadre capable of wielding Marxism as a living breathing method for interventions and leadership in the class struggle, let alone win the support of the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the revolt is breaking to the surface. The SRWP\u2019s Western Cape convenor has written a highly critical letter to the leadership which describes \u201cthe sinking Titanic which is the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party\u201d and \u201cthe absence of leadership as the rudder of the organization\u201d. The letter also confirms the existence of an undemocratic internal regime and strongly hints at the growing influence of careerist elements. This is not surprising to us. It is an inevitable product of a party that grew out of, and has based itself upon, the SACP II-grouping in the Numsa bureaucracy and not the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Western Cape letter calls for the convening of an SRWP Special Congress. We call on all genuine SRWP members to support this call and campaign for it within the party.<\/strong> However, we are not optimistic about the campaign\u2019s chances of success. The sad reality is that the SRWP is just a piece being moved around the factional chess board in the unhealthy manoeuvring within the Numsa bureaucracy ahead of its end-of-year Congress. Whether or not an SRWP Special Congress goes ahead will be determined by whether or not it will help or hinder the SACP II-grouping to win positions. If they calculate that a SRWP Special Congress will allow opposition to them to consolidate and pass a negative verdict on their leadership before <\/em>they are certain of re-election in Numsa they will never allow it to go ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we are wrong (and we hope we are!), and an SRWP Special Congress does go ahead, structures must campaign for the SRWP to stop obstructing the Saftu and WCS workers\u2019 party process and throw its full weight behind it<\/strong>. The seismic shifts underway in society as a result of the unprecedented health, economic and political crisis, as we have outlined in Part 1 of this Open Letter, offers the working class the chance to get back on track with the reclaiming of its organisational, political and ideological independence, including, decisively, the creation of a mass workers party with a socialist programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue to Part 3<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Part I of our Open Letter we put forward our views on what we believe must begin to emerge from Saftu\u2019s 25 August NEC in order to take forward working class struggle against the unprecedented health, economic and political crisis. But the fact that the NEC meeting is taking place almost a full five months into this crisis cannot be passed-over in silence. Why has there been such a delay in convening the leadership?<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comment"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"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=2095"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2156,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions\/2156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}