FEATURE

The SACP-ANC Alliance

The SACP: charting
freedom in anew
South Africa.

By BRIAN BUNTING

The South African Communist Party
celebrated its 65th birthday on July 30
last year. The oldest Communist Party
on the African continent, it was formed
in 1921, when a number of socialist
Organizations came together in Cape
Town and merged on the basis of their
common adherence to Marxism.

Today people are publicly declaring
their love and loyalty for the South Afri-
can Communist Party, allied to the
mighty African National Congress in the
Struggle for national liberation.

In the Eastern Cape last month, two
young men were convicted on acharge of
displaying an object which indicated ‘‘an
association with the ANC and SACP’.

——

money, he replies that he can get other
workers in my place. And yet he makes
all the profits. That is what capitalism
means to me.”

Peace and Freedom

ANC and SACP stood for peace and
freedom for all, he said.

Could the case against capitalism and
for socialism be put more.simply and ef-
fectively? He and his fellow accused
were sentenced to three years imprison-
ment, two of which were suspended — a
comparatively mild sentence, the court
indicating it understood the kind of prob-
lems the accused testified about,. their
poor living conditions, their frustration
and the absence of avenues for solving
their problems.

ANC President Oliver Tambo made it clear to U.S.
Secretary of State George Schultz, that the ANC
alliance with the SACP is not negotiable, neither is its
relationship with the socialist countries.

The major evidence against them was a
Video film taken by the security police at

the funeral of one of their comrades shot
by police.

The video showed thousands of people
Marching behind a huge red flag, al-
legedly that of the SACP, and the huge
black, green and gold flagof the ANC. At
One stage the video focused on one of the
accused shouting ‘‘Phantsi capitalism,
Phatsi’’.

Questioned about his actions, the
youth showed no fear and made no ex-
cuses. ‘‘Phantsi capitalism,’’ he
explained, meant down with capitalism.
He was against capitalism because it re-
duced him to poverty. >
_ “Look at the area I am forced to live
in. Look at the streets. I don’t have de-
cent toilets. Look at the buckets. I have
No electricity in my house. How must we
live under these conditions?

‘* And when I tell my boss I need more

Of course, courts are not always so
understanding, and most sentences
handed down in ‘‘unrest’’ cases are vici-
ous in the extreme reflecting the panic of
the white supremacists as their empire
crumbles about them.

Today we can claim that the people
have responded magnificently to the call

of the ANC to render the country

ungovernable. The apartheid regime
may have the troops and weapons to kill,
imprison and torture tens of thousands of
men, women and even children, but it
has been unable to stamp out resistance
and it is unable to implement its policies
in spite of the emergency powers it has
been wielding since June last year.

There are countless examples of acts
of heroism and defiance. One of the most
striking was the conference held at the
end of February of the National Union of
Mineworkers — a union representing the

“The enemies of the South African revolution are Ena aie
energy on an attempt to break the ANC ith the SACP,” So rican
Communist Party member Brian Buntin

Bunting is editor of the SACP’s theoretical journal, the

nce W
soit Tribune readers at a recent banquet.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

today concentrating all their

African Communist.

Black mineworkers. Speaking in the
name of 360,000 signed up members, the
union demanded a 55 per cent wage in-
crease, the abolition of job reservation
(the industry is the only one remaining in
South Africa in which skilled jobs are
reserved for whites) and an end to the
migratory labor system which forces
men to live without their families for the
duration of their contract.

The union then went on to raise a
number of political issues which show
where the sympathies of the working
class lie. It declared its support for the
Freedom Charter, for sanctions against
the racist regime, and for disinvestment.
It demanded the lifting of the state of
emergency, the release of Nelson Man-
dela and all other political prisoners and
the declaration of May 1 (May Day) and
June 16 — the anniversary of the 1976
Soweto uprising — as paid public holi-
days.

The ANC and the SACP

The African National Congress is
today a fighting nationalist revolutionary

pressed people of south Africa and the
international movement against imperial-
ism and war. The nationalism of the
ANC and other Congresses developed
an international dimension.

The ANC document ‘Strategy and
Tactics’’ adopted at the Morogor con-
ference in 1969 reflects the enormous ad-
vance made in the thinking of ANC
members in the period since the
Nationalist Government came to power
in 1948. The four main findings were the
South African revolution is based on the
national liberation of the African people;
imperialism no longer monopolies the
world, the socialist countries and the
newly liberated countries have altered
the balance of forces; political indepen-
dence must be accompanied by eco-
nomic emancipation; a key role in libera-
tion will be played by the working class.

Mobilizing for Power
It is the pursuit of this policy by the

‘ANC, SACP and their allies which has

made possible the mobilization and
organization of the South African people

The enemies of the South African revolution are
today concentrating all their energy in trying to break

the alliance.

organization commited to goals which
are identical with those of the short-term
SACP program. It was Communists,
amongst others, who helped to bring this
transformation about. In the 1930s it was
party members like J.B. Marks and
Moses Kotane who played a leading role
in rescuing the ANC from the doldrums
and, in the 1940s and 1950s, together with
members of the ANC Youth League and
other militants, helped raise the level of
struggle to the high point the ANC has
displayed in the last two decades.

Yet party members never allowed
themselves to be swallowed by the ANC.
Marks and Kotane, while occupying key
positions on the ANC executive, at the
same time filled the two main official pos-
itions in the Communist Party, that of
chair and general secretary respectively.
Their comrades in both organizations
testified to their complete loyalty to the
two organizations. ;

Every party member who was eligible
played his or her part in their national
organizations and helped cement the al-
liance between the ANC, the SACP, and
SACTU which is the centre piece of the
liberation movement today.

A process of cross-pollination occur-
red between the Communist Party and
the national movement. On the one hand
the Communist Party achieved and
incorporated into its program a truer
understanding of the nature and impor-
‘tance of the national movement than it
ever had before. On the other hand the
national movement was moved towards
an appreciation of the class forces which
underlie the national conflict in South
Africa and to perceive the relationships
between the national struggle of the op-

and brought about the revolutionary
situation which prevails in the country.

The enemies of the South African re-
volution are today concentrating all their
energy on an attempt to break the ANC
alliance with the SACP. It is no coinci-
dence that during the last year, the South
African government, the U.S. Congress
and the so-called Anti-Terrorists organ-
ization in Britain have all published
tracts which attempt to show that the
ANC is a tool of the SACP which in turn
is a tool of Moscow.

These attempts will fail. In Moscow
last year and more recently in his conver-
sations with U.S. Secretary of State
George Schultz, ANC President Oliver
Tambo has made it clear that the ANC
alliance with the SACP is not negotiable,
likewise its relations with the socialist
countries.

It is my belief that the longer the strug-
gle continues and the more bitterly it is
fought out, the closer our two organiza-
tion will come to one another. The first of
battle will temper the steel of our unity,
as the masses realize through their own
experience that the South African, rev-
olution is part of the world-wide crusade
against imperialism and for peace and
social proress.

Brian Bunting is a member of the central
committee of the South African Communist
Party and editor of their theoretical journal,
The African Communist. This article is an
abridged version of the remarks he made as
guest speaker at a Tribune banquet, held in
Toronto, March 16. His complete remarks,
dealing with the national question in South
Africa, will appear in the March issue of
Communist Viewpoint. CV is available from
Progress Books, Toronto.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 1, 1987 e 5