South African Communist Party (SACP) supporters march in support of their demand for free and fair elections in Johannesburg on March 18, 1992. The challenge confronting the Conference of the Left is historic in scope. It is about determining whether a socialist future remains possible in South Africa under contemporary conditions, says the writer.
Zamikhaya Maseti
The forthcoming Conference of the Left, convened by the South African Communist Party on May 29-31, must be welcomed and applauded by Orthodox and Neo-Marxist Leninists alike as a decisive intervention aimed at awakening the Left from its deep slumber, both here at home and abroad.
Indeed, it arrives at a moment of profound uncertainty not only for the South African Left, but for the broader liberation movement itself. Consequently, the conference emerges during a difficult conjuncture characterised by ideological drift, social despair, economic stagnation, institutional fragility and the gradual fragmentation of the post-1994 political settlement.
The central question confronting the Left today is therefore no longer whether capitalism has failed the majority of South Africans. That reality is visible in the lived experiences of the working class, unemployed youth, rural poor and marginalised communities across South Africa.
