YESTERDAY the South African president Thabo Mbeki said that the acrimony in the African National Congress, the mainly black ruling party in South Africa, is the worst he has seen in his 50 years in the party.
Mbeki is facing a challenge for the ANC leadership by the party’s deputy leader, Jacob Zuma, at next week’s party conference.
Zuma was formerly South Africa’s deputy president but was sacked after being charged with corruption in 2005, and is aiming for the leadership of the ANC as a stepping stone to the presidency of South Africa.
Asked what were the differences in the ANC, Mbeki replied: ‘The disadvantage I have is that nobody says that. Nobody in the ANC stands up and says: you are doing the wrong things.’
Mbeki continued that he regretted that the divisions in the party had become centred on people rather than policies.
The problem that is causing the crisis in the ANC is the enormous anger of the masses of the black working class and the poor.
The reason they are angry is that the ending of apartheid in South Africa, and the bringing in of majority rule, has not seen a great improvement in their living standards, in their jobs, wages, housing and in the education of their children.
The shanty towns are still there, the white farmers still own the land, the black working class still labours down the mines and in the factories for very low wages, and the same bourgeoisie still owns the means of production.
What has changed is that the governing party is now mainly made up of black people, and the black majority cannot be openly discriminated against on the the grounds of skin colour.
The victory of the liberation movement and the unfinished nature of the South African revolution has allowed a section of the black middle class to find its place in the sun, running South Africa for the local and the world bourgeoisie, while the vast majority of the people remain living and working in desperate conditions, but are growing angrier and angrier at the way that they have been betrayed.
The base of the ANC is made up of an alliance between the trade unions and the Communist Party.
The trade unions are under tremendous pressure from the masses to fight for wages, jobs and homes, while the Communist Party strives to keep the masses of the working class under the thumb of the ANC leaders as they set out to privatise the state owned sections of the economy.
The problem of the South African revolution is that it is unfinished. The black petty-bourgeoisie has been liberated and has flocked into government posts while the working class and the rural poor remain in chains.
The conflict between the different trends in the ANC is ‘personal’ because the last thing that the different leaderships want is an open political struggle about the future of South Africa in case it encourages the working class and the poor to push forward.
What is required in South Africa is the building of a revolutionary leadership in the trade unions, that will lead the working class forward to the socialist revolution. This will expropriate the landlords, divide the land amongst the rural poor, and expropriate the bankers and the capitalists.
Once this is done and the working class has broken up the South African capitalist state and established a workers state, a South African planned economy will in a very short time create a new world in south and southern Africa with decent housing, jobs and education for millions of workers both in the towns and in the countryside.
A leadership capable of organising and leading this revolution has to be built in South Africa.
This means building a South African section of the International Committee of the Fourth International without delay.
