By Ambassador Phatse Justice Piitso
Early mornings today, disquieted by difficult realities posing our national democratic revolution, before browsing the fascinating prologue, Raul Castro, A Man in the Revolution, by his friend and comrade, Nikolai Leonov, cold winter visiting shores of our motherland, the most beautiful geographical location on the universe, home of episodes of our heavenly and earthly, where destiny is the marathon of patience, resilience and selflessness.
Tormented thoughts, ransacking my kitchen, yearning for the aromatic winter coffee, trapping heat to survive complex phenomenon of nature, could not imagine the noise I incurred, waking my wife from her deep sleep, as I mix the coffee capsules, milk, sugar and hot water, came the realisation that even the epoch of the modern scientific world, would take what humanity might not discover, ability to separate again the ingredients in my cup of coffee.
The fundamental question is what do we make of ourselves in the domain, how would the future generations perceive of us, having betrayed the aspirations our forebears stood for centuries, perishing for the very noble cause, struggles for the freedom and dignity of all humanity. I pose the question to all renegades within the ranks of our revolutionary alliance’ who are we in our generation, to break the revolutionary alliance, led by our national liberation movement, the African National Congress?’
I found it the most difficult question to answer, but to take responsibility, that I was there, when some of these unknown tendencies, infiltrated our liberation movement, contributing to the demise of its revolutionary character, distorting its historic mission, forces of counter revolution conniving to transform our democratic republic into a lumpen state, derailing our forward march to attain the objectives of our national democratic revolution, arising out of the womb of centuries-old legacy of colonialism and imperialism.
Taking glance at the rising sun from the horizons, gathering strength and determination, the beauty of our mother nature, appreciating the fundamental theoretical question, that our alliance remains inseparable from its revolutionary task, living organism of our struggles, like a cup of coffee, whose ingredients are inseparable from each other. Our revolutionary task, as the alliance, is to build a new democratic society.
I felt agitated to make a call to all renegades, masters of demagogy, mawkish snivelers, vacillating against our revolution, those hellbent to the destruction of our alliance, talking left but walking right, destroying its historic necessity, its traditions and culture. The alliance of the South African Communist Party, Congress of South African Trade Unions, South African National Civic Organisation and mass democratic formations is led by the African National Congress.
History bears reference that it is only the ultra-left or the ultra-right, who sufferer from the common disease, of calling the working class into a revolution, where there is no a revolutionary situation. For they are not equipped with the necessary tools of our revolutionary theory, to appraise objective and subjective realities, in a given concrete historical conditions.
In the words of wisdom from Vladimir Lenin, the revolutionary leader of the world working class movement, it is indisputable that a revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation, and that it is not every revolutionary situation that leads to a revolution. It is only when the ruling class can no longer rule in the old way and the working class is capable of making the bourgeois state ungovernable, that a revolution can take place.
He further says that without these objective changes, which are independent of the will, not only of individual groups and parties, but even of individual classes, a revolution as a general rule, is impossible. It is the totality of the concrete circumstances, when the objective changes are accompanied by subjective changes, that we can usher a revolution.
The principal reason why in 2017, when interviewed by the London Morning Star newspaper, about the South African Communist Party contemplating of standing for elections independently of the ruling party, the ANC, I said that we cannot leave the mass without a vanguard and the vanguard without a mass. Quoting Lenin’s “Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder” when he said: “With the vanguard alone, victory is impossible.”
Lenin warned the world communist movement, of growing tendencies of leftwing populism, of the dangers of bowing to the worship of spontaneous working-class movement, and belittling the importance of consciousness and theory. Warning of tendencies of throwing the vanguard alone into decisive battle before the whole class, before the broad masses have taken a position, of direct support of the vanguard, referring to that not be folly, but a crime.
Over the last hundred years, members of the Communist Party have been taking leadership responsibility of the national democratic revolution as first and foremost leaders of the ANC, appreciating the ANC as the leader of our national democratic revolution. This has been the strategic orientation of our revolutionary alliance, during the period of the underground, in prison, in exile and after the unbanning of the liberation movement.
During the negotiations period, our erstwhile revered revolutionary, the late General Secretary of the South African Communist Party, Cde Joe Slovo, mastered the art of the balance of forces, being the brain behind the historic document of the “sunset clause”, which was hailed by the whole world, as a strategic qualitative breakthrough, guiding our transition into the first national general elections. The “sunset clause” became a fabric of the ideal democratic society we want to build.
After the historic first national general elections, which ushered overwhelming support for the ANC as the leader of our newly-democratic state, dozens of communist leaders were deployed in all sectors of our society, both in the public and private sector, some becoming dominant in the national and provincial cabinets, national and provincial legislatures, in the administration as Directors-General, CEOs of state-owned and private sector entities and many other key roles in the decision making arena.
It will be untrue of members of the SACP today, to point failures at the doorsteps of the ANC, and not to take responsibility themselves, it will be counter revolutionary of members of the SACP, to point at the weaknesses of the ANC, as a reason for breaking our revolutionary alliance, of leading the SACP to stand for elections alone, independent of the ANC, it will be counter revolutionary of us to do so without looking at ourselves, without looking at the role we have played in weakening the ANC and COSATU or even the SACP itself. It will be disingenuous of members of the SACP, not to take responsibility of the challenges faced by our liberation movement in particular and our democratic revolution in general.
But the lesson we have all learn, taking cognisance of the unfolding events in our country, looking at the demise of our national democratic revolution in the hands of lumpen provocateurs, serving themselves and not the people, we have no choice but to build and consolidate on the unity and cohesion of the ANC, to renew the ANC, forge unity and traditions of our revolutionary alliance, understanding well that we are still confronted by the common enemy against transformation, against the liberation of the black people in general and the Africans in particular.
The truth is it is not difficult to be a revolutionary when the revolution has already taken place, when all people join the revolution just because they are carried away, for different reasons, mainly for careerism. But it is far much difficult and more precious to be a revolutionary, when conditions for a revolutionary situation have not yet taken place.
I cannot choose between the ANC and the South African Communist Party, but I can choose true traditions and culture of our revolutionary alliance, traditions and culture of our national democratic revolution, supporting the ANC as the leader of the alliance and our revolution. There is no any other political movement in our country, with the necessary capability to take forward the agenda of the transformation of the South African society, other than the ANC.
It is our revolutionary duty, it is our responsibility, to stand up and defend the gains of our national democratic revolution, our alliance is the heritage of the history of our heroic struggles, architecture of the kind of a society we seek to construct, how would future generations take of us, to have demolished such a historic monument of our people, with a stroke of a pen. Our alliance is like a cup of coffee – its ingredients are distinct, yet inseparable, each giving strength, character, and meaning to the whole
Thank you
***
Ambassador Phatse Justice Piitso is a member of the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) writing this article in his personal capacity.