30.08.2000

Renewing the struggle

Dale McKinley has just been expelled from the South African Communist Party - for daring to criticise the neo-liberal policies of the ANC government, in which the SACP plays a prominent role. Peter Manson spoke to him for the Weekly Worker

You were charged with "publicly and consistently attacking the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP", with "publicly and consistently promoting positions that undermine the SACP" and with "violation of the SACP constitution". What happened at the hearing?

I requested a postponement because there was no clarity from the central committee on the right to representation. This was turned down and the disciplinary committee proceeded with the hearing on Saturday August 19. I had prepared a written response, but deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin had not circulated it to the disciplinary committee. I stated that I was prepared to wait for a few minutes while this was done, but he refused to make copies.

As well as Jeremy Cronin, party treasurer Thabo Mufamadi was present, along with two other comrades. Ronnie Kasrils, one of the government ministers I have criticised, was due to attend, but did not pitch.

The CC was meeting that weekend. The disciplinary recommendation went to the CC the following day and they decided to expel me. I am informed that there were no copies of my response to the charges available at the CC. There was no discussion, no dissent and no vote.

I do have the constitutional right to appeal within 30 days. I am at present consulting with some comrades, but I haven't yet made that decision. Any appeal will be heard by the CC, the very body that expelled me. I can also appeal in writing to the next congress, which unfortunately is not due until 2002 (the last congress voted to reduce their frequency to five years).

How long have you been a member and how did you come to join the party?

I grew up in Zimbabwe, and I left what was then Rhodesia to avoid the draft. I spent most of the 80s in the USA and became involved in anti-apartheid and anti-imperialist movements. I was in regular contact with the ANC. Most of my academic work was related to South Africa. My PhD - a critical history of the ANC - was itself published as a book.

During this time I was active in solidarity movements and travelled to El Salvador, Mozambique and the Middle East before coming to South Africa in 1990.

From 1990 to 1993 I ran a leftwing Marxist bookshop in Johannesburg - it was the only one of its kind. It was run on a non-sectarian basis and I met most of the comrades on the left. From that experience - in those heady days of organising debate - I got to know people in the SACP, particularly Chris Hani (it was Chris who opened the bookshop).

Even though I disagreed with some of the SACP's theoretical and strategic underpinnings, under Chris's leadership the party was opening up. It was the only mass-based organisation on the left. From the beginning I expressed my differences and engaged with comrades regularly and openly both outside and inside the party. I have actually used articles from the Weekly Worker to stimulate debate in the past.

What positions have you held in the party?

I was a full-timer at head office for four years from 1996 to January this year, when I resigned. I was the managing editor of Umsebenzi, the party paper, but I was getting heavily censored by Cronin and general secretary Blade Nzimande, the 'political editors'.

I undertook many other work profiles - I was responsible for information technology and set up the party website, and was unofficially in charge of publicity and information. I started and then ran the party's Chris Hani library and resource centre.

I have held elected positions at all levels except the central committee itself. Most recently I was chair of Johannesburg Central branch and before that chair of the Johannesburg district, which includes Soweto. I was also on the Gauteng provincial executive committee.

The leadership clearly does not believe in any right to public criticism of the party's actions. How do you view this question?

It must be related to the context in which the particular Communist Party is operating. In South Africa the ANC is moving to the right and is implementing neo-liberal economic policies whose effect is to launch attacks on the rights of workers. Given this context, we have the duty to defend the working class and oppose political opportunism, regardless of the source.

But in all of my criticisms I have never attacked the integrity of the alliance with the ANC, which was born out of struggle.

Surely it is legitimate to question the alliance?

Yes, it certainly is. But I did not even do what the leadership accused me of - I actually criticised actions, not the integrity of the alliance itself.

What is your view of democratic centralism?

To me it is quite clear. Democratic centralism presupposes vigorous debate at the grassroots. The centralism comes with the collective decision arrived at after the democratic debate, and these decisions must be adhered to. That's why I point to the party programme in my documents - they are the cumulative result of democratic centralism, the guiding light of the organisation. It is quite clear to me that the way the leadership has been acting is at variance with the programme.

I would go further. In my view democratic centralism presupposes the right to make public criticisms, including of democratic decisions. Otherwise how can policy be changed? It is only during an action that the suspension of criticism ought to be considered.

Basically I agree with that. I didn't mean to imply there should be a clamp on debate once a decision is taken. Take the government's 'Growth, employment and redistribution' (Gear) programme. When it came along, it transformed the whole basis of things. It is necessary first to raise your criticisms internally. I never once ran to the public bourgeois press just to score points, even over the party's initial support for Gear. I always raised criticisms internally first.

I wrote so many internal documents, including in my official positions, but most of them were sidelined. But there has been no real attempt on the part of the leadership to engage in debate - other than to attack me for making the criticisms.

In your response to the leadership's charges, you write of a change in the balance of forces in the SACP. Can you elaborate?

The key point was the 10th Congress in 1998. Previously there had been a struggle between, predominantly, those in the government and those outside. With the election of Blade Nzimande we felt more attention would be paid to what the whole membership was saying. However, over the last one and a half years those in government have managed to emasculate the party - in my document I referred to the "liquidationist tendency". It is obvious to me that the impetus for my expulsion came from that grouping.

The party has very little public profile. Umsebenzi and African Communist only come out quarterly and of course the SACP only stands in elections as part of the ANC.

I fought for a much more active public profile with more active campaigns, but the leadership stymied that. Because of this the active membership has halved over the last three years. Membership figures are usually exaggerated and I never saw accurate details, even when I worked at headquarters. But I would estimate that at present the active membership has dropped to between 5,000 and 7,000.

How much pressure is there now for the SACP to break with the ANC?

It is the key debate on the ground. It doesn't make any strategic sense any more. I am not against an alliance per se, but it must be principled. However, today the divergences on most issues are so large (or ought to be) that the SACP has been providing a left cover for the ANC.

The debate has been between those who want to change the ANC - winning its 'heart and soul' - and those who want to move away. After the 10th Congress we wanted leaders who would begin to gradually lay the framework for the break. But this is where the changed balance of forces comes in. I recently looked at the composition of the CC: of its 30 members, over 80% have positions in government - national, provincial or local. They are beholden to the ANC leadership.

But the alliance is beginning to fray at the edges, and this is a process that cannot be reversed. The SACP is always talking about "managing the contradictions of the national democratic revolution", but the contradictions can't be managed any more.

Do you think the action taken against you is also directed against others, particularly in your Johannesburg branch?

Yes, the action is broader than against me. Johannesburg Central is certainly the most active and most leftwing in the country. It has the most intellectual and organisational energy of any structure in the SACP. It has been very critical of the leadership direction and the message is being sent out that bureaucratic proceduralism will be used to stymie them.

I heard that the comrades from the former Socialist Workers Organisation are active in Johannesburg.

Yes, a lot of noise was raised when they decided to join the SACP and most of them were in my branch. They run a small collective called Keep Left, but I think the leadership attitude is changing and there is going to be an attempt to shut it down.

What is your attitude to the November local elections?

The upcoming elections are quite important. They are part of the reason why the SACP is cracking down - they are afraid of a serious loss of support for the ANC. A lot of lefts, including ourselves in the SACP, have been taking up the issues of local services, the fight against cutbacks and privatisation, and have been having a degree of success, so the ANC is having to pay attention.

In the urban areas independent socialists will stand for election in some wards against the ANC. Some of them will win and others will get good results. These interventions must be supported. Our branch passed a resolution which put forward a left programme for the elections and called on ANC candidates to endorse it. The SACP leadership is publicly against privatisation, but they rejected this.

How do you see the struggle in general moving forward now?

On the larger level there is a fairly positive side, particularly in the unions. We need to build a different force so that people can come together, and there are possibilities for an independent organisation of the working class. We need to begin the necessary hard work through active discussion and debate. I'm under no illusions about the difficulties of renewing the struggle, but the process is beginning, and it is the duty of all revolutionaries to involve themselves.

Personally I'm putting my political and organisational energies into that struggle. We are beginning to make contacts not just in South Africa, but in the whole region - Zimbabwe, Namibia and Mozambique, for instance. All three of those countries have in effect been taken over by the SA economy. South Africa has become the sub-regional imperialist power. The irony is that it has communists in its government - the same ones who turned a blind eye to Mugabe's actions directed against the working class.

You said "we". Who do you mean?

At present we are a loose grouping of like-minded individuals. But, for example, last week I was invited to address a seminar on the future of the left. It was a packed meeting of around 100 people in a small hall - revolutionary socialists, present and past SACP members and community activists. People got quite excited - it was almost like the old times.

As I say, I have no illusions about the difficulties, but the struggle for a renewed working class movement is one we must undertake.

The SACP's charges against comrade McKinley and his full response can be read here.