APDUSA held its annual national conference in East London, on 20-21 April this year. The presidential address focused on the dynamics involved in the construction of a radical left alternative in SA. Given initiatives in the past – the Radical Left Network and the Democratic Left Front, and more recently, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party(SRWP) – the urgent need for the coalescence of radical left groups into a substantive left party is being felt more keenly. Lessons from Europe and Latin America were debated as well as taking cognisance of both the advances and setbacks left re-groupment has undergone thus far. The importance of spelling out and agreeing on a minimum set of ideas regarding the basis and building of unity, as well as guarding against anarchist-syndicalist and liberal/populist tendencies were critical points that flowed from inputs made.

The paper on agrarian and land reform spelled out that 30.4 million out of 57 million South Africans who are mostly rural based citizens, are living in poverty. In the spirit of the repressive 1996 constitution the maintenance of traditional, tribal  leaders represents but one aspect of undemocratically imposed systems. The importance of the working class acting in concert with the peasantry in building resistance to landlessness was considered essential for progress to be made. The recent developments surrounding  Xolobeni serves as an example of how the present ruling elite protects and advance the interests of big corporations – as well as their own –  at the expense of the landless millions. Conference reaffirmed that it is therefore important that the transitional set of demands of APDUSA speaks to the question of agrarian revolution as a component of a broader social revolution.

The introduction and discussion on the crisis/crises of bourgeois democracy across the world touched on its historical evolution; how the present day state serves as an instrument of class oppression and exploitation of the working class by the bourgeoisie. The looming threat of fascism for the working class reflects the depth of the crisis of capitalism. In defence of its own interests the working class has to use its right to vote as part of an independent political programme aimed at supplanting bourgeois democracy with a system of socialist democracy.

The global migrant and refugee question and its impact on organisations in affected countries reminded conference of the importance of proletarian internationalism. The world-wide extent of the crisis of capitalism is reflected in refugee crises in the Americas, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The rise of the right, regional wars over resources, political turmoil and instability are issues the working class and its allies are compelled to confront on an increasing scale.