APDUSA held its third biennial political school in East London, over the weekend of 26-28 March this year. About thirty participants attended, most of whom were young members from various parts of the country.
Our first political school, held in 2012, examined the contributions of the Unity Movement to the protracted struggles in South Africa. It is a struggle that continues despite the celebrations of freedom in 1992. In the next political school attention was given to the strengths and limitations of trade unions in the struggle for socialism. It was therefore fitting that the theme of this year’s school was “Constructing Workers Parties to Seize and Hold Political Power.”
It is a popular misconception amongst those on the left in South Africa that the road to socialism will proceed via working directly for the construction of a revolutionary workers’ party. This is not the view elaborated at the APDUSA political school. It was shown that while the Unity Movement was influenced deeply by the compact “Worker’s Party of South Africa”, the path selected under the same influence was the prerequisite of building a unified nation as a necessary precursor for the construction of a socialist state. All involved in the liberatory struggle in South Africa were confronted with the necessary acceptance of the fact that what the oppressed and exploited populace was facing was in the first place, a national struggle for national unity and an end to the enforced racial, ethnic or religious divisions in society.
The Unity Movement was the only organisation which actively propagated the view that as a priority, it was necessary to build a nation, while the African National Congress campaigned on the basis of opposite and contradictory lines as expressed in its Freedom Charter: that all “national groups” shall have equal rights , and that there shall be equal status for all national groups and races. Most tellingly it posited that all “national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride”. Right up to the mid-eighties, the Congress Movement steadfastly maintained separate organisations for the perceived separate racial groups in the country, with precedence given to the authority of black Africans.
The school proceeded to elucidate attempts to construct revolutionary socialist movements and in particular, the latest thrust by NUMSA to construct a socialist orientated united front and also a proposed workers’ party. The dangers and flaws of a trade union leading a political struggle was given due attention. There was a focus on the understanding of the meaning of political non-collaboration and economic collaboration. While a trade union, by its nature, was bound to follow a process of collective bargaining, which in its essence is economic collaboration, it could not willy-nilly adopt the role of political leadership which would involve organisations beyond the trade union movement. Here there was a clear need for a clear-cut, unifying political programme which, by the same token, implied political non-collaboration with the oppressor. Those who blandly supported NUMSA’s proposals were shown to be following an anarcho-syndicalist approach to struggle which is bound to fail.
Similar to the approach followed at our 2014 political school, our analysis of how to construct workers parties placed the South African experiences in an international historical perspective. Indeed, the fight for socialism necessitates that working people defeat capitalism and imperialism on a world scale. Uniting workers parties in different countries through an international party has thus always ranked high on the agendas of scientific socialists, from Marx and Engels, to Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky. The discussions uncovered how the tumultuous class wars internationally, marked by unanticipated turning points, shaped the rise and decline of the First, Second and Third Internationals.
Attention was given to not only consider the turbulent path of the Fourth International, but also the political practices and organisational tactics of the Bolshevik Party in the Russian revolutions. Coming to grips with contemporary attempts at constructing anti-capitalist parties in Latin America and Europe proved to be far more daunting but worthy of deeper on-going study as these also hold major lessons for the socialist movement in our country.
In conclusion, examining the essence of what was entailed in the building of a revolutionary workers party has direct relevance for our current political activities. In the present epoch this demands the necessity of building broad based anti-capitalist movements as a transitional goal.
The discussion was intense, with keen interest displayed by all participants. Many of the politically younger members voiced the view that the level of political education being covered was of a much higher standard than they had previously encountered anywhere. All agreed that the struggle depended as much on a clarity of ideas as on organisational, numerical strength.
In a subsequent review of the political school it was concluded that the organisation will definitely proceed with the programme as it is proving to be one of the most effective means of educating our youth as is needed most crucially at this time.