In July 1998, then deputy president Thabo Mbeki bluntly told stunned delegates at the 10th congress of the SACP that they should either stop telling lies about the government or take a hike. “Tell no lies! Claim no easy victories!” he said, invoking the slogan popularised by Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau.
Mbeki, who had taken over the leadership of the ANC the previous year and was soon to succeed Nelson Mandela as president of the country, was scathing. “The practice within our movement to tell lies about one another must come to an end,” he said. It was perhaps the first time an ANC leader had publicly scolded the party in such harsh terms, especially in the afterglow of the 1994 elections. Mandela had delivered a similar message the previous day, which some delegates had dismissed as the rantings of an old man. They could dismiss Mandela. He was about to leave office. Mbeki was the future they had to contend with. “None of us should go around carrying around the notion in our heads that we have a special responsibility to be a revolutionary watchdog over the ANC,” he warned.
Some in the party never forgave Mbeki and treated him with suspicion, if not contempt, throughout his presidency. They bided their time, and eventually got their revenge when they helped to topple him in favour of Jacob Zuma in Polokwane 10 years later.
The SACP doesn’t seem to have taken any notice of Mbeki’s rebuke. They still act as though they’re the ANC’s “revolutionary watchdog”. They always find something to bitch about. In fact, they’ve locked horns with every president since 1994. The ANC could be forgiven for thinking that with friends such as these, who needs enemies. But they have inexplicably chosen to humour such a noisy and yet insignificant entity.
The SACP took on Mandela and Mbeki at the time because of the government’s decision to replace the RDP (Reconstruction & Development Programme) with the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) macroeconomic programme, which the left regarded as based on right-wing economic dogma. Some even called it treachery and accused the ANC of being agents of imperialist forces, the left’s ultimate insult. It was not a nice thing to say about friends, which probably explains Mbeki’s angry response.
Replacing Mbeki with Zuma was regarded as a highwater mark because they believed that as their vassal — imposed on the country despite his shortcomings — Zuma would do their bidding, or would simply be putty in their Marxist hands. Once in power though, Zuma kept them at arm’s length, and embraced — and enriched — the notorious Gupta family from India. Then it was Ramaphosa, a billionaire, who enjoyed their favours. In their desperation to get rid of Zuma they had no qualms in embracing a man with suspiciously unexplained wealth. Class consciousness apparently has its price. Now he too has become a villain.
Ramaphosa was at the Avalon cemetery in Soweto this week, trying to use honeyed words to flatter enemies of his government of national unity. He didn’t come down on them like Mbeki did all those years ago. He tried to sweet-talk them. But of course communists, despite their earlier dalliance with Zuma, are principled people who are not easily convinced by flattery. Ramaphosa did well to remind them that Joe Slovo, the communist icon whose death 30 years ago they were honouring, was a consummate strategist, but never inflexible. He always changed tactics to suit new circumstances. After all, Slovo is the man behind the so-called sunset clause which brought into being Mandela’s government of national unity in 1994, which Ramaphosa has used as a blueprint for his own.
It was probably fitting that it should be Slovo who put the idea on paper. He was the apartheid regime’s bête noire, widely believed to be the organ grinder behind the guerrilla activities in the country. Because of the regime’s twisted logic, they perhaps didn’t think black people were capable of planning such attacks without the guidance of a white person. Also, as a white person and a communist, he was regarded as a turncoat who’d spurned all the privileges due to him to work for the downfall of the government. It must therefore have come as a surprise to the National Party (NP) government that it was Slovo, their arch-enemy, who was proposing such a conciliatory stance.
The ANC’s a party in decline. And that’s a reality the communists find hard to grapple with. But then facts are stubborn things
When Slovo first floated the idea in the publication African Communist, proposing temporary power-sharing to appease white politicians and bureaucrats, especially the military and big business, it went down like a lead balloon within the alliance. Many found it difficult to swallow, regarding the proposal as a ruse to postpone the liberation they’d sacrificed so much for.
Struggle stalwart Albie Sachs, who carries with him scars of that sacrifice, is reported to have said: “Comrades, we look at the GNU as a trap for us, but what if we see it as an opportunity? If we have (FW) de Klerk and the others in government, we can control them more easily than if they are outside creating mayhem.” It was akin to Lyndon Johnson’s idea of having one’s enemies inside the tent pissing out, rather than outside pissing in.
But after the resolution was approved, many said the idea had been around for some time, and Slovo only had the foresight — and courage — to put it on paper. Success has a thousand fathers. Well, that may be true. The idea may even have emanated from within the so-called right-wing circles of the movement but, to succeed, it required a Slovo or someone from the left to spearhead it — just as it took Richard Nixon to go to China and Menachem Begin to make peace with Egypt. An unpopular idea often requires someone within the group that’s likely to be more resistant to it, to push it through. The SACP would probably have opposed it had it come from one of their ideological opponents, but they happily went along with the idea of the NP joining Mandela’s GNU because it was suggested by one of their own, their idol, Joe Slovo. In fact, they kept quiet even when, under Mbeki, the ANC gobbled remnants of the Nats.
It was more difficult in 1994 for the ANC to convince its constituency to share power with other parties, especially with the NP. It didn’t need to. It had the numbers to govern on its own. It doesn’t have such a luxury now. In fact, it’s a party in decline. And that’s a reality the communists find hard to grapple with. But then facts are stubborn things.
One can understand the SACP’s dilemma. Throughout most of its life it had been the tail that wagged the dog, and the trusted wellspring of ideas. Now it’s almost been reduced to a gnat in the political firmament. It has become a strange organisation that seems to have no particular reason to exist. It wouldn’t take part in elections, and yet insisted on having a say in government. It spends the time reminiscing about past glories, plotting or pointing fingers.
From celebrating Slovo’s life this week, they’re preparing for the commemoration of Chris Hani’s assassination in a few months, which will provide them with yet another platform to whinge.
It’s a miserable life.
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