COSATU House, 10th, For Gaza

The destruction of the Gaza power station brought it all back. The first reports, no doubt picked up from Israeli press releases, said only that the power station had provided “40%” of Gaza’s power. Only in one later report did it appear in a small line that “the remaining 60% is provided by the Israel Electricity Commission”. This vile Israeli act was not a partial but a total reduction of the autonomous power-generating capacity of the Gaza Palestinians to zero. It was not an act of “collective punishment” as some have said. It was much worse that that. It was mass torture of the worst, psychological, kind. The nature of psychological torture is clearly shown in Stan Winer’s article (thanks for sending it to us, Stan), linked below, called “Tortured Fragments of History”. Torture at this level has the object of “reversing” the nature and mentality of the victims. These “psychological torturers (require) to have total control of the environment. Existing mental programming can then be replaced with new patterns of thinking and behavior.” In “The Real Reasons for Israel's Invasion of Gaza - Israeli experiment in human despair” Jonathan Cook sets out quite clearly the strategy and tactics of the Israelis – mass emiseration of an entire poulation (See linked article below.) This is atrocity on a vast scale playing itself out in front of our eyes. What can one do? You hope it will stop, but you know by the nature of the Israeli strategy and tactics that it will not stop. You know that the next atrocity is already planned before the current one is even started. The whole thing is systematic. South Africans have no excuse for ignoring it or not seeing it for what it is. Young South Africans have been told by the older ones. The older ones can remember what “total strategy” means. Those who were in exile can still remember a time 20-odd years ago when the two spin-doctors, Adriaan Vlok for the apartheid regime and Benjamin Netanyahu for the Zionist entity used to appear on nearly every news bulletin around the world. Each was allowed as much time as he wanted to spread his filthy lying “version” of what was happening. South Africans have made some progress. Vlok was never punished, but at least he is out of the way. It has become too easy for us to ignore the plight of our Palestinian comrades. We ask ourselves what can be done? too silently The answer is that we must get together around this question. COSATU is providing a lead. On Monday 10th July at 14h30 on the 10th Floor of COSATU House, 1 Leyds Street, Braamfontein, COSATU will be hosting a “media conference” to discuss the Gaza situation. (See the linked notice for Condemnation of Gaza Massacre and Media Conference). This is more than just another press briefing. It is also a chance for people to gather in solidarity and to hear proposals for the way forward. Please, Comrades, support this event even if you do nothing else! Let us not allow open ourselves to accusations of the kind made by the Zimbabwean MDC Youth Assembly (see link) who say in relation to recent attacks by the Tsvangirai faction, among other things: “What we find more appalling as a democratic youth movement is the deafening silence by the human rights defenders in the civic society. What honestly is it that could be termed civic of a society that pays a deaf ear when evil is perpetrated? …the human rights defenders have on every occasion responded with disastrous passive silence.” The MDC youth have exposed the limitations of “civil society” proponents of democracy who are not themselves democratic. We have to do better than this. Click on these links: COSATU condemnation of Gaza massacre, Media Conference (Notice) Israeli experiment in human despair, Jonathan Cook, Counterpunch (1478 words) Tortured Fragments of History, Stan Winer (3120 words) MDC Youth Assembly Condemns Attack On Party Officials (521 words)

Which Side Are You On?

The Communist University gathers this evening to discuss excerpts from “Value, Price and Profit” by Karl Marx. Our aim is to discover the meaning of “surplus value”, which is the heart of Marx’s explanation of how capitalism works. A CU subscriber sent a link to the Post-autistic Economics Review. You can get it by e-mailing “subscribe” to pae_news@btinternet.com . It is an on-line magazine that criticises “Neo-classical” (marginal theory of value) economics mercilessly and humourously, but from a “pluralist” point of view. Marx published “Capital” in 1867. The “Neo-classical revolution” that followed in 1870 (of Jevons in England and others in Austria and Switzerland) was not a revolution. It was a reaction. The authors of this magazine are looking for third and fourth positions (i.e what they call "pluralism"), which they will not find. Nevertheless their demolition of neo-classicism is very clear and useful. Next week’s session (July 14) has been scheduled for solidarity with Cuba but as yet we have no specific programme for that day. We must discuss the question this evening and decide what to do with the time. South African Communist Party General Secretary Dr Blade Nzimande has issued a straightforward condemnation of Israeli aggression against the defenceless population of Gaza and the West Bank in the form of an open letter to the Israeli ambassador to South Africa. See the link below. As a contribution to the difficult discussion of post-revolutionary culture in South Africa, here linked below is Lenin’s short, sharp correction of Lunacharsky during the debate around the “Proletcult” movement. The Proletcult organisation was cut loose from the Soviet communist party soon after. South Africa will not escape having to face these general types of question, arising afresh in our present and different specific conditions. Click on these links: SACP open letter to the Israeli Embassy in South Africa (800 words) On Proletarian Culture, Lenin, 1920 (926 words)

On The Ball

Yesterday was a good example of the “strength in depth” of the working-class movement in South Africa. In the latest Umsebenzi Online SACP GS Dr Blade Nzimande responds to the enormous debate that has developed in the country following the publication of the SACP’s discussion document on “State Power”. On this occasion he writes to bring the discussion back to its constitutional purpose in terms of the 2005 SACP Special National Congress mandate. In the second article, YCL National Chairperson David Masondo deals neatly and brilliantly with the drab attempts at commandeering Karl Marx’s works in the cause of building capitalism, published in ANC Today. Then on the same day in the Johannesburg Star came the blockbusting article by COSATU GS Zwelinzima Vavi. The veteran liberal journalist Allister Sparks had in an earlier article made the mistake of suggesting that COSATU was somehow short of suggestions as to the way forward for the country. Cde Vavi has no difficulty making abundantly clear in straightforward style that COSATU has done its homework a million times better than Sparks. Also yesterday, in the Business Day, the well-known Professor Sipho Seepe, nobody’s lap-dog, looks at the question of whether the SABC’s efforts at limiting and controlling public discourse have succeeded, and notes that this is far from being the case. The working class has a tight defence and a good ability to counter-attack. The ANC also, as a whole, is still very much capable of principled contributions. Umsebenzi Online usually comes out every fortnight on a Wednesday and can be subscribed to. Unfortunately the subscription address is not easily found. If anybody has that address please let the CU know. In any case it will continue to be circulated and also linked from the home page of the Communist University web site. Click on these links: Umsebenzi Online, Vol 5, No. 59, 05 July 2006 (4108 words) Policies do not benefit the poor, Zwelinzima Vavi, The Star (1100 words) A thousand flowers in full bloom, Sipho Seepe, Business Day (1101 words)

Bourgeois Thuggery

The single linked report below includes text and pictures received by e-mail. The message that brought the images was simply headed “Pictures of Trudy, Linos Mushonga and Simangele Manyere”. Some background: The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was formed to fight elections against the Zanu-PF party in Zimbabwe. Although its original leader Morgan Tsvangirai is always described as an “ex-trade-unionist”, the MDC as a whole is a party which solicits working-class support, but is actually bourgeois in nature. The Zimbabwean working class has no political instrument in its hands that could impose minimum standards upon the country’s political life. Hence the rivalries between bourgeois factions within the MDC have degenerated into thuggishness to the point where even women are ruthlessly attacked. So, in the absence of a dedicated party of the working class in Zimbabwe, whatever attempts at restraint there may have been over the rival bourgeois gangs (by liberal pacifists, for example) have proved insufficient. Only class-alliance politics, and especially the organised force of the working class, both mass and vanguard, are capable of defending peace and the rule of law under democracy. The same is true in South Africa. The most destructive political force here at present is the tendency of rival bourgeois factions to attack each other in complete disregard of morality and due process of law, not stopping at character assassination or even murder. Potentially this can go towards the kind of random terroristic violence that we have seen in the past. Hence the maintenance of class-alliance politics can be said to be a matter of public safety in both countries. “Over-arching” political pretences of class neutrality are no more than a whited sepulchre covering up dangerous and even lethal bourgeois rivalries which threaten democracy itself. Click on this link: MP Trudy Stevenson and others attacked by Tsvangirai thugs (660 words, plus pictures)

Democracies

This afternoon at 15h00 there will be a press conference for the SACP Gauteng Province signature campaign for better public transport . The venue is the National Rail Commuter Corporation Board Room at Park Station, Johannesburg. See the linked notice, below. The Cuban Foreign Minister, H. E. Felipe Pérez Roque, addressed the Ministerial session of the African Union on June 30th at the Banjul AU meeting. His main purpose was to brief African ministers about the XIVth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement due to take place in Havana from 11th to 16th September, of which Cuba will be the chair (taking over from Malaysia). This is a very profound and exciting development. See linked document for all the details. The US web site Counterpunch continues to carry reports on the Cuban Five. The one linked below went up yesterday. The worldwide Campaign for the Five starts on September 12 and goes on until October 6. The purpose of this campaign is to mobilise US public opinion in favour of justice for the Five. The Cubans especially want letters and e-mails to go from South African organisations to their sister organisations in the USA. You can’t just send a form letter. You must write a real letter. Therefore you have to read about the Five, so that your knowledge comes through in your letter, even if it is short. The Friends of Cuba Society (FOCUS) will hold a campaign planning meeting on 10th floor, COSATU House, 1 Leyds Street, Braamfontein tomorrow at 14h00. FOCUS Gauteng is going to have its constitutional AGM at 14h00 on Saturday July 29 at the Ekhurhuleni Civic Centre, cnr Pretoria and C. R. Swart, Kempton Park. This will be followed by the “Cuba Café” from 18h00, for which there is an entrance fee of R30. In Mexico there has been an election for President. The US and British financial papers are this morning announcing the victory of the right-wing candidate. For some more background about Mexico, see the linked article from the US on-line publication The Nation. PUDEMO of Swaziland has had a meeting at Mlumati College in Mpumalanga, South Africa, and has issued a detailed statement. See link below. The ANC Youth League comments on the appointment of new Youth Commissioners in South Africa and uses the occasion to give a general run-down on this subject. See link. Click on these links: Cuban Foreign Minister Perez Roque to African Union Ministerial (1450 words) A Mockery of Justice, Counterpunch (738 words) Mexico's labour rebels, David Bacon, The Nation (1718 words) PUDEMO Mlumati Declaration, 1st July 2006 (969 words) ANCYL on appointment of National Youth Commissioners (808 words) SACP Gauteng to launch a public transport signature campaign (Notice)

Mandarins And Javelins

There will be a panel discussion this morning from 10h00 to 12h00 about the forthcoming United Nations Small Arms Review Conference. The venue is the Goethe Institute, 119 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood. For further information please contact Chemist Khumalo (011 – 339 1363), Ben Coetzee (012 – 346 9500), Sudeshan Reddy (012 – 354 8507) or (RSVP) Thandeka Zondi (011) 339 1363. Sponsors are the Ceasefire Campaign, the UN Information Centre, and the Institute for Strategic Studies. As of yesterday, the Communist University’s amadlandawonye web site has moved from fourth to third place (in terms of numbers of page views) out of 5135 fully public wikispaces in the whole world. Thanks for your support. Jacob Zuma has been forced to bear investigation for many years now. Bulelani Ngcuka and Penuell Maduna announced three years ago that they had a “prima facie” case against him. When they were at last forced to bring that case to court by a certain date, the Scorpions conducted panicky illegal armed “fishing” raids all over the country. They got nothing and courts made them hand back the documents and computers they had seized. Now that the date of the hearing is approaching, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is once again trying to play for time. This flimsy tissue of innuendo must be thrown out! See the linked Sunday Independent report. The City Press unfortunately does not put up all its articles on its web site. Hence the CU is not able to pass on their article on the Khampepe Commission (on page 2 of yesterday’s paper) headed “Scorpions: judge urges a reprimand”. This is so far the only newspaper to examine the commission’s findings (as opposed to the government’s response to those findings). Among other revelations, Judge Sisi Khampepe reported that Penuell Maduna, while he was Justice Minister, obstructed the working of the Ministerial Co-ordinating Committee (MCC) “which was created in terms of the NPA Act to deal with the functioning of the DSO”. The DSO is the Scorpions. The City Press article (linked below) says: “In her remarks, the judge effectively blames former justice and constitutional affairs minister Penuell Maduna, whose cabinet position meant that he would chair the MCC, for failing to convene meetings. The City Press is also not convinced by the government’s fudged “solution” of putting the Scorps under two masters. Who is? See the linked City Press editorial, below. “The Wonga Coup” is the name of a book by Adam Roberts about the attempted coup of Equatorial Guinea involving Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The following is from a review of this book in the Sunday Times (also linked below) ‘Plotter Louis du Preez confirmed to Roberts, he said, that the plotters believed “the [South African] authorities had okayed it”. ‘Said Roberts: “They truly believed they had at least tacit clearance from the South African government.” ‘Sensationally — although it does not claim the briefing itself as fact — the book also claims that plotter Henry van der Westhiuzen told Mann and others that he had briefed Bulelani Ngcuka, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, on part of the plan. ‘Van der Westhiuzen told his co-conspirators that he had received “no warning to stop”, the book claims.’ Thatcher was charged but released by the Scorpions/NPA, while it was headed by Bulelani Ngcuka and still under Penuell Maduna as the then Minister of Justice. Thatcher was only required to drop a splodge of wonga on his way out of South Africa. Maduna and Ngcuka are now in (big money) business, jointly and severally. Perhaps it is time to declare a new non-racial identity in Africa: the amaWonga. Although internally extremely fractious, this group has one thing in common: enormous loads of money. Benz cars are nothing to them. Mansions and yachts on the French Riviera and Lear Jets for their wives are more their style. Some of them were Mandarins who threw javelins. Others deal in more lethal things. German prosecutors have begun to investigate the circumstances of the corvette deal with South Africa that was “mysteriously” won after having been previously ruled out. Will these German prosecutors show “Hollywood” or insect tendencies? Or will they catch the real crooks? See link. Meanwhile another ANC legal Marxist, MP Rubben Mohlaloga, has sallied forth to smear critics of the new rich as “anarchists”. See the linked City Press article below. Judge for yourself. COSATU’s document on “Possibilities for Fundamental Social Change” is nevertheless being systematically debated around the country. See the Sunday Independent report linked below. Click on these links: Zuma, Thint apply to have case struck off, state dithers, Sindy (911 words) Cabinet Scorpions decision has sting in tail, City Press (488 words) Dogs of war shown as braying asses, Sunday Times (1453 words) Corvette deal mired in bribery and corruption allegation, Sindy (482 words) SACP shifts to anarchism, Rubben Mohlaloga, City Press (705 words) Union regions debate future of ANC alliance, Da Costa, Sindy (942 words)

Wonga

COSATU has quickly responded to the situation at the WTO talks where it looks like the Imperialists have had a set-back. See the linked statement below. In an article in the Sunday Independent, COSATU GS Zwelinzima Vavi was reportedly scathing of rich nations' "absurd" demands: "It is a vigorous attempt by developed countries to recolonise the developing world," he said. Concerning the single-sex hostels that still survive after so many years of the national democratic revolution, the NUM statement linked below says: “That Implats does not want to convert the single sex hostels into family units in order to avoid these problems can only mean that they think these men are perfect in compounds where they are enclosed like animals.” Concerning the psycho-management techniques used in the cheap-labour super-exploitation zone on the Mexican side of the US border, the linked article below quotes: "They are very distasteful management techniques," says Rosenberg. "And you have to call them that because they are used very methodically.” It seems like the same management logic in South Africa and in Mexico: systematic degradation. Is there such a thing as conspiracy? The word means “breathing together”, or “breathing the same air”. Capitalism works by this kind of breathing of the same air at lunches and dinner parties, horse-race meetings and on golf courses. The higher up you go, the more this is true. There is no such thing as the “hidden hand of the market”. Capitalist big business is done face-to-face in a milieu where everybody knows everybody else. For example, in President Thabo Mbeki’s weekly letter on ANC Today the President relates his pleasant participation in the 30th anniversary celebration of the Black Management Forum and quotes “founder member of the BMF, Reuel Khoza” at some length. This was in the speech in praise of Mandarins. This Reuel Khoza was the Chairman of Eskom and is now in a deal with former Energy Minister Penuell Maduna, who is also a former Justice Minister and is also in business with Bulelani Ngcuka, former head of the NPA/Scorpions and wife of Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who succeeded Penuell Maduna at the Ministry of Energy and is now the Deputy President after her husband had pursued the previous Deputy President, Jacob Zuma, using the NPA/Scorpions, together with Maduna, for at least five years. It would take a book to write up all these relationships. Indeed there are already books, such as “The Wonga Coup”, which do record some of the connections. Perhaps it would be good if there could be a new edition of the old South African publication “Who Owns Who”. See the linked article below for details of the Khoza-Maduna coup on Sasol “worth R1,45bn”. Where did they get all that wonga? Surely not from savings. Not even from a Mandarin’s salary. As a further contribution to the discussion started in the same ANC Today under the heading “The Communist Assault on the Year 1996”, and so as to let Lenin himself straighten out the anonymous writer’s tortuous derivations. See the linked speech of Lenin’s on Political Education from 1920. Click on these links: COSATU on the way forward in the WTO Doha Round (366 words) NUM dispute at Impala Platinum over single sex hostels (331 words) Psycho-Management hits Mexican maquiladoras, Moses, Counterpunch (1014 words) Maduna, Tshwarisano, Sasol seal BEE deal, Reuters, Business Day (123 words) Speech to Political Education Workers Conference, Lenin, 1920 (4019 words)

Peking Duck

In England there is a way of talking known as the royal “we”. This is the second person plural form used by kings and queens and Margaret (“We are a grandmother”) Thatcher. It goes something like this: 1st Gentleman: “Gad sir, how dare you! You farted in front of the queen!” 2nd Gentleman: “Frightfully sorry, old boy! I didn’t know it was her turn!” Queen Victoria: “We are not amused!” President Thabo Mbeki often uses the royal “we”. He did so again yesterday in “ANC Today”. His weekly on-line letter begins like this: “Recently we participated in the 30th Anniversary and Corporate Gala Dinner of the Black Management Forum (BMF).” This “we” is not him and his wife, Zanele. It is not him, Essop Pahad and Frank Chikane. It is just him, Thabo Mbeki, alone. It is the royal “we”. His letter goes on to praise Mandarins, (yes, Chinese Mandarins) in a manner which will have the likes of Devan Pillay (prophet of bureaucratic “embedded autonomy”) glowing with courtly pleasure. See the linked document from ANC Today below for this part of the presidential blog. There are three articles in the ANC Today this week. The second one (not linked below) is a motivational speech for bureaucratic “best practice” from Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi. Always, the bureaucrat must look over his or her shoulder like a person at a polite banquet, to see which cutlery is supposed to be used for which dish. In “best practice” there is no autonomy, “embedded” or otherwise. Follow-my-leader is the rule. Things are “de rigeur” or “faux pas” (“done” or “not done”). Nobody must think for himself. The mystery author of the over-excited unsigned article called “The Communist Assault on the Year 1996” also repeatedly pronounces from the position of the royal “we”. Yet it reads more like the grubby and convoluted work of Ronald Suresh Roberts than that of our philosopher king-emperor and Lord of the Mandarins, Thabo Mbeki. The trouble with anonymity is that you can never be sure. It might even be a joke. See the second ANC Today extract in the first document below. Text-jugglers, phrasemongers, trick-cyclists, bibelots, mountebanks and charlatans are like bodily gases. They are better out than in. The harder they come, the sooner they blow away. As Bob Dylan almost once sang to our president’s generation: “Your answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind”. The WTO is another source of greenhouse gas. But more dangerous. Neva Makgetla tells it like it is. See below. COSATU Weekly puts out the message on the Cuban Five, short and to the point. See below. Also below, a short letter on the capitalist art of hedging, directed at the Mandarins of Telkom. Lenin was a great straight talker, and for that reason was practically immune to the schemes of frauds and poseurs. As Jeremy Cronin recently reminded us, Lenin regarded reformism as a far greater danger than ultra-leftism. In the end it is the free-willing historical subject, both individual and collective, that matters. Power to the people! The Johannesburg YCL will meet at 11h00 on Sunday, July 2nd in the SATAWU offices, 13th floor, Old Mutual Building, 29 Kerk Street, between Harrison and Loveday to discuss excerpts from Lenin’s “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution”. A very apt work for the present conjuncture. Next week, presumably at the same time and place, the same YCL will discuss excerpts from “Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder”. See the link below. Click on these links: Revolutionary Mandarins and legal Marxism, ANC Today (4355 words) Africa in danger of Doha runaround, Makgetla, Business Day (732 words) Days of support of the Cuban Five, COSATU Weekly (487 words) A perfect hedge, Letter, Business Day (214 words) Lenin, 1920, Left-Wing Communism, C1, 2, 4, 6 & 7 (14931 words)

CU Tonite

The Communist University convenes this evening at 17h00 at the Women’s Jail, 1 Kotze Street, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg. The Topic is excerpts from Karl Marx’s (1867) Capital Volume 1, Chapter 1. Next week (July 7th) we meet again at the same time and place and the topic will be excerpts from “Value, Price and Profit”, also by Karl Marx (1865).

Constant Vigilance

Rev. Frank Chikane announced something about the Scorpions yesterday, but there is considerable disagreement as to what the meaning of it was. The Johannesburg Star on its page 3 says: “Scorpions reined in and gagged after months of scrutiny”. But the Johannesburg Business Day on its front page says: “Scorpions to keep sting after cabinet reprieve” Were they reined in or were they reprieved? The SACP statement brings some clarity to the matter. Investigation and prosecution should not be combined in the same unit. The SACP calls for the full implementation of the ANC National General Council resolution (of July 2005) on the full incorporation of the Scorpions into the South African Police Service. See link. The African National Congress itself “welcomes and supports the decision” in its bland, praise-singing statement (see link). The NPA/Scorpions' “Hollywood” practices were condemned in the Khampepe Commission (which the ANC praises). Yet the chief NPA/Scorpion “Hollywood” practitioner, Makhosini Nkosi, was immediately in front of the SABC television cameras putting his odious gloss on the matter, effectively claiming it was business as usual, almost as if the whole process belonged to himself from the beginning! The struggle continues. Statistics show that South Africa’s growth is practically speaking jobless growth and COSATU has immediately responded with a call to a programme of strike action. See the link to this major story below. COSATU picketed the Australian mining company BHP Billiton in Johannesburg yesterday in solidarity with the Australian working class suffering under a reactionary government. Metalworkers from many African countries gathered in Durban issued a common statement in opposition to the Imperialist WTO manoeuvres. Working class internationalism is the oldest and strongest kind and it is practiced every day. See two links below. COSATU has also not hesitated to issue a full condemnation for the unspeakable atrocities of the Israeli colonialists in Gaza where they have destroyed that country’s power-generating infrastructure and arrested the elected representatives of the people. See link below. A fifteen-year-old boy was killed in an animal feed-mixing machine in Vryburg, while working illegally for a farmer. The Department of Labour is going to open a criminal case. COSATU adds further information about child labour and calls for the complete elimination of theis practice. See link. Click on these links: SACP on cabinet announcement on Scorpions future, 29 June (324 words) ANC statement on cabinet Scorpion decision, 29 June 2006 (135 words) COSATU threatens strikes over jobs, Amy Musgrave, Business Day (269 words) COSATU on Australian reaction, An injury to one is an injury to all (893 words) African metalworkers on WTO agreement (758 words) COSATU, Israeli attacks condemned (428 words) COSATU, Child labour tragedy (327 words)

Cooking

After the Telkom down-time came the power failures (another one yesterday evening). These cut into the time available for composing this Communist University mailing. Yet the requirement for discussing the SACP discussion document is pressing. The difficulty of the matter is great. The fear of making an embarrassing, hasty, loose response looms large. Sometimes it seems as if the telephone and power problems could be the work of Renée Descartes’ “wicked demon”, re-politicised for the 21st century. Therefore please accept these roughly-sketched notes with apologies. Yesterday’s Chris Hani Institute debate at the Sunnyside Hotel was well attended and of a high standard, but finally indeterminate. It showed us to have been brought close to a “Hic-Rhodus-hic-salta” moment where choices will have to be made, or chances lost. The day before (at his Monday press conference) SACP Deputy GS Jeremy Cronin said the following (according to Business Day): “Our core constituencies are exactly the same and we have to ask — why do it? We have about 73 MPs in the National Assembly. As a party, we have huge influence in Parliament.” Cde Cronin’s ability to get to the heart of the matter is evident. If the SACP’s and the ANC’s core constituencies are exactly the same there is hardly even a need for two organisations. Or alternatively if the SACP is already in the National Assembly “as a party” then it does not need to make any changes - and changes are risky. So why are the SACP and the ANC still separate organisations, in alliance, as opposed to one single structure? Is it no longer the case that the working class is distinct and that the SACP is its vanguard party? Is it no longer the case that the working class needs an overt alliance with non-working-class masses through an organisational vehicle of popular democratic power, such as the ANC? The Deputy GS seems to be saying that these questions are best left unresolved for the present. Others have certainly taken the view that the SACP (and by implication the working class as a whole) can “go it alone”. But such comrades are scarce. It is hard to find even one individual who will own up to this foolish position in public. Others again speak of winning a parliamentary majority and forming a “Communist Government”, without specifying what is to be done about the other, and more powerful, constituent parts of “state power”. These are the “special bodies of armed men” (the police and military), the “sovereign” constitutional judiciary, and the administrative bureaucracy. Without dealing with these there is no question of possession of “State Power”. In South Africa, the elected legislature is by design the weakest component of the state. The “levers of power” are not found there. A “Communist Government” would be obliged to manage capitalism, like any other parliamentary “labour” or “social-democratic” government of the past. Others, including some at the CHI event yesterday, believe that the National Democratic Revolution should have been, and should now be, “led by the SACP”. By what means this imposition could be effected is not clear. If, on the other hand, this SACP leadership is to be won and not imposed, then there is no impediment and has never been. In fact the discussion process now under way appears to be, precisely, an assertion of the leadership of the working class and its vanguard party, in practice. The elected presence of the SACP in parliament “as a party” in its own right should not preclude the continuation of the alliance. It is hard to see the force of Cde Cronin’s argument in this regard. Practically speaking, in an SA parliamentary election, there is no confrontation of candidates at local level, but only a “list process”. The existence of a separate SACP list could as easily relieve as exacerbate the scramble for ANC seats in the next parliament, none of which are guaranteed to the SACP. In terms of the whole, concrete picture, some comrades at the CHI event were asking what was the SACP’s intention, or in fact prescription, for the future. The SACP’s purpose, like that of any other communist party, is not to render itself, or the state, into the sole historical agent. Its purpose is only to help make the working class a class-for-itself. The intention, as before, is to realise the slogan: Power to the people! Linked below are the Business Day report of Jeremy Cronin’s press conference plus Zwelinzima Sizani’s excellent article from the current Umrabulo. Click on these links: Cronin rejects going it alone, Wyndham Hartley, Business Day (360 words) Motive forces and the ANC, Zwelinzima Sizani, Umrabulo 25 (2341 words)

Mobilisations

Today at 11h00 at the Sunnyside Park Hotel, Comrades Oupa Bodibe (head of NALEDI) and Ashwin Desai (of CCS) will debate “State Power” under the auspices of the Chris Hani Institute. The SACP has issued a statement on the deaths of 14 teachers, SADTU members, from a single school in a single road accident; and also the deaths of four policemen in the Jeppestown shootout. See linked document below. SACP Deputy GS Jeremy Cronin gave a press conference in Cape Town yesterday. The Star reported his remarks on transport, including road accidents (Cde Cronin is also chairperson of parliament’s transport portfolio committee). News24 reported the same press conference but covered only the political aspects and whether it will be possible for the SACP to have its own candidates and still remain in an alliance with the ANC. Cde Cronin thinks it is not a good idea to try. See two documents linked below. As requested by a comrade by e-mail, the South African Labour Relations Act and Basic Conditions of Employment Act, in their latest amended form, are now archived on the CU web site, as downloadable files (one is a Word file and the other a PDF). See links below. More and related material can be found on the Department of Labour site. The Johannesburg YCL political school is now meeting on Sunday, and not as per the previous schedule. They will be discussing excerpts from “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution” by V I Lenin. Please refer to the YCL for details of time and venue. Also today, Israeli war machines are advancing into Gaza, as they have been doing for nearly 50 years, to kill and to destroy. The Israeli colonialists came into power in the same year as the Nats in South Africa. Down with colonialism! Click on these links: SACP on SADTU members accident and Jeppestown killing of 4 police (324 words) Fix transport woes, Cronin, Star (390 words) Alliance split would hurt SA, News24 (630 words) Labour Relations Act, Amended, South Africa, 2002 (1019KB Word download) Basic Conditions of Employment Act, Amended, South Africa, 2002 (534KB PDF download) Two Tactics of Social Democracy, Lenin, 1905 (10805 words)