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Noah Tucker / December 22nd 2007

The decisions at the ANC's Polokwane Conference, including the election of
Jacob Zuma, have increased the likelihood, not merely the possibility, of a
better world.

Jacob Zuma's accession to the post of President of South Africa is by no
means a done deal. If the Scorpions get their way, by 2009 Zuma could be
taking up residence in the Qalakabusha Prison rather than in Pretoria's
Union Building. And even if Zuma does become South Africa's head of state,
it is by no means clear that this would lead to a radical change in the
course of the country's capitalist economy- a course which has further
enriched the white elite, and created a new wealthy black elite, while
leaving millions in abject poverty.

But whatever eventually flows from it, the fact of Zuma's election, together
with the other candidates supported by the trade unions and the communists,
to the leadership of the African National Congress, is a matter of
significance to the world, not just to South Africa.

The clean-sweep change of leadership within South Africa's ruling party is
the organisational expression of a change of understanding and a change of
mood. The cruel myth of 'trickle-down' has already been exposed, and it is
no longer controversial to observe that neo-liberalism delivers only misery
to the majority of the people. Yet neo-liberal policies have been tolerated,
even in South Africa where the political representatives of the mass of the
people hold state power, because these policies have been seen as essential
for national economic survival in our globalised world. The way that the
4,000 delegates at the ANC's conference at Polokwane voted signifies a
further shift. Among the activists there is no longer merely a view that
neo-liberalism is bad, but a feeling that something can be done about it.

The factors behind this shift include changes taking place internationally.
Zwelinzima Vavi, the leader of South Africa's trade union federation COSATU,
used his speech at a Communist Party rally in October 2007 to point out that
socialist forces are regaining the initiative. As he declared:

When many have declared socialism dead, it is appropriate to mark the 90th
Anniversary of the Russian Revolution and re-instil confidence in the future
of socialism. This rally takes place amid rising working class confidence in
South Africa and the world, especially in Latin America.

The collapse of the Soviet Bloc in the later 1980s led to a triumphalist
imperialist camp and some of their ideologues claimed the end of history.
Today as we meet in this rally the overconfidence of neo-liberal
globalisation has been challenged both by peoples' struggles and the failure
of the system to resolve class contradictions and humanity's basic problems.
We are therefore at an important and opportune juncture to pursue the
struggle for social transformation to greater height. 

After giving a positive assessment of the achievements of the socialist
countries in the 20th Century, Vavi contrasted that record with the failure
of capitalism to deliver on its promises:

The collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 80s we were told was a poignant
statement of the infeasibility and undesirability of socialism.
Globalisation we were promised will herald a new era of prosperity for all.
The new liberal dogma was unleashed on the people of the world and with more
vigour and cynicism in the former Soviet republics. Capitalism was re
introduced overnight without due regard to the social political and economic
context of the former Soviet republics.  This resulted in a Mafia - style
privatisation of state owned enterprises and the tearing down of the social
welfare system.

What is the record since then? Capitalism remains a crisis-ridden system
based on profit for a few. The divisions between the rich and the poor have
widened both within and between nations...

Mass impoverishment has become the order of the day as Neo liberalism has
shattered social welfare systems and destroyed the public sector in many
developing countries. Simultaneous with the restructuring of the working
class, profits have soared for local and international bourgeoisie. In short
mass impoverishment coexists with high levels of profit.

Vavi was explicit in his analysis that the struggles in South Africa are
part of a global contest:

Neo liberalism has been challenged throughout the world and more forcefully
in Latin America. In this context we salute the wave of left wing-parties
coming to power in Latin America, part of that wave of global challenge to
neo liberalism. The South African working class has also forcefully
challenged the neo liberal dogma...

What are the implications for the South African Revolution? We must see our
struggles as interlinked with the global struggle against neo liberal
globalisation. Our challenge is to radicalise the current path of the
National Democratic Revolution. This means building the power and the
confidence of the working class to challenge the hegemony of capital. That
requires a reversal of the flirtation with the neo liberal dogma by the
democratic government...



Zwelinzima Vavi
 
Concluding his speech, the COSATU leader called on African National Congress
members to mobilise to elect Jacob Zuma as ANC president. In this, he and
his allies were successful. Whether the ANC under its new leadership will or
can alter the direction of the country's development to benefit the poor and
the working class is another matter. Critics who pour scorn on the idea that
such change is likely have focussed on the assurances which Zuma has given
to big business. Professor Patrick Bond of the Centre for Civil Society
remarked on 21st December:

In his first speech to the ANC as president, Zuma himself intoned that there
was "no reason why the business or international community or any other
sector should be uneasy." Quite so; after all, a mealy-mouthed Zuma made
this clear last month in closed-door meetings organised by officials of two
New York banks, Citi and Merrill Lynch, which are themselves making the
world markets rather uneasy with their financial shenanigans.

In Professor Bond's opinion, Zuma should instead have "address[ed] these
bastards as follows":

'You international financiers have wreaked havoc on the South for more than
three decades: with your loans to dictators like the apartheid regime, with
your Third World Debt Crisis from the early 1980s which completely wiped out
our 1960s-70s socio-economic progress, with your Emerging Markets crises
starting in Mexico in 1994 and continuing across the world, including
destruction of post-apartheid SA's currency on four occasions, and now, with
your Subprime Mortgage gambles which suckered African-Americans and other
low-income people into the US real estate bubble leaving them to now suffer
wealth shrinkage more severe than at any other time in modern history - at
the same time threatening the safety of the world financial system.

'Your two institutions had to fire your CEOs Stan O'Neal and Charles Prince
for incompetence and write off more than $20 billion in bad investments. And
you're telling me I must dance to your tune, to calm your goddamn jitters?
Actually, you should calm OUR jitters!'

This criticism is naive in the extreme. Firstly, on the tactical level:
Jacob Zuma is still far from becoming the leader of his country, and the big
investment banks have the capacity to exert considerable pressure on South
Africa, for instance by destabilising its economy, in order to seek to
prevent Zuma from taking up office as president. The facts in Professor
Bond's paragraph are accurate, and ably demonstrate the destructive power
which the international financiers have at their disposal. While ANC leader
but not yet South Africa's president, Zuma would not be in a position to
manage the country's response to such attacks.

Secondly, strategically: even were one to assume that the correct socialist
strategy for a medium-developed Third World country is the immediate
nationalisation of all economic activity (a most questionable assumption in
present global conditions), South Africa would still need a relationship
with the transnational companies, including the banks, in order to be able
to trade and to attract technology.

One of the most disastrous consequences of the collapse of the USSR is that,
almost without exception, all international trade, all international
finance, all international investment, and all international technology
transfer now takes place on a capitalist basis. The challenge facing any
country wishing to develop in a socialist direction- or even, as in the case
of Cuba, to retain its socialism while developing its economy- is how to
successfully engage with global capitalism while seeking to change the
system.

Nevertheless, South Africa does have prospects in the present context.
Venezuela and some other Latin American countries are demonstrating that it
is possible to take some, at this stage very slow and limited, steps towards
socialism. A new factor of great help is the rise of China as a trading
power and potential investment partner, which reduces- but does not remove-
the ability of the USA to impose its will on other nations. There are
respects in which South Africa is well placed to take, and further, to lead,
a move away from rampant capitalism. It is, both economically and
politically, the leading nation in its continent.

The country's political structure gives it a further advantage. The
overwhelming public support enjoyed by the ANC, the genuine mass involvement
in the organisation, and the high level of political consciousness of its
activists give South Africa some of the advantages of a one-party state
without any of the disadvantages which occur through the banning of
opposition parties. Further, not only is the ANC in an alliance with the
Communist Party (SACP) and COSATU, the trade union federation, but these
organisations are highly influential within the African National Congress
itself. In his closing speech to the Congress at Polokwane on 20th December,
Jacob Zuma reaffirmed this relationship:

Comrades, this conference has also reaffirmed the need for the continued
existence of our Tripartite Alliance. This proves the correctness of the
statement made by Inkosi Albert Luthuli when he said that the ANC is the
shield and SACTU [the previous trade union federation] the spear.

This is the nature of the ANC-SACP-COSATU Alliance relationship. This
alliance is based on mutual trust and respect and should be defended and
protected by all ANC members. Coming out of this conference we have a clear
mandate to build and strengthen the alliance, to nurture it and defend it.

In his greetings to fraternal political parties, Zuma mentioned by name only
one organisation outside Southern Africa- the Communist Party of Cuba.

The new leader of the ANC described the outcome of the conference as having
"historical significance". The extent to which this is true remains to be
seen. But at the very least, the decisions at Polokwane have somewhat
increased the likelihood, not merely the possibility, of a better world. by
Noah Tucker / December 22nd 2007