As the South African Communist Party prepares for its 'Conference of the Left', the inclusion of right-wing populist formations raises critical questions about the future of socialism in South Africa.
The conference of the left, in its current conceptualisation, shows signs of not being the success its conceptualisers would like.
The concept paper repeatedly talks of the concentration of resources but refuses to mention whose hands those resources are concentrated in. However, some of the arguments put forward against the conference are equally odd.
SAFTU, for example, focuses its attention on the fact that the SACP has been instrumental in the implementation of the neoliberal agenda of the past 30 years. But this line of argument is quite weird.
Many workers' trade unions have been instrumental in this current malaise. NUM, for example, has produced no less than three SGs of the ANC, two of which ended up at the Union Buildings. COSATU and its affiliated unions are implicated, as were many of the SAFTU unions when they were still in COSATU. By SAFTU's logic in rebutting the conference, they would equally reject a conference called by COSATU workers. In our collective majority in South Africa, are implicated to differing degrees.
