Liberal Framework or Liberation Framework? Comparing Liberal and Vanguardist Understandings of the Reorganization of Post-Apartheid South African Society
Paper presented at the 10th CODESRIA General Assembly
Kampala, Uganda - December 8-12, 2002
Krista Johnson
Assistant Professor
DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois
Email: kjohns27@depaul.edu, Tel: (773) 325-7456
DRAFT – DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHOR’S PERMISSION
Abstract
This paper will then trace the influences of Leninist vanguardism within the ANC and the broader liberation movement. It will demonstrate that despite its radical ideology and rhetoric of popular democracy and people-driven transformation, the ANC shares with most elitist, liberal political parties a similar understanding of the role of leadership, representation and participation. This paper will contribute to our understanding of why it is that liberal and radical liberation and democracy struggles in southern Africa have often yielded similar disappointing results, and suggests that the challenge for those concerned with promoting popular democracy and participatory forms of development is not simply to oppose the liberal paradigm and advocate a more radical, leftist or even socialist alternative, but to transform the very basis of state/society relations by conceptualizing new forms of political organization that emphasize participation over representation, and horizontal, decentralized decision-making over hierarchical ones.
Introduction
Social transformation in southern Africa has been shaped and constrained by, among other things, its history of settler colonialism and the anti-colonial nationalist movements that fought against it. The national liberation movements of southern Africa were compelled to adopt an insurrectionary approach to change, given the nature of the colonial/apartheid regime and the impossibility of meaningful engagement and change through legal struggle. Underpinned by Marxist and nationalist revolutionary theories and strategies, these liberation movements prepared themselves for a variety of struggles of a revolutionary kind, including the use of guerilla warfare, and envisaged insurrectionary change and a revolutionary seizure of power that would lead to a transition to people’s power. Operating within the international context of the Cold War, with capitalism seemingly on the retreat and opportunities for independent states to advance development goals in a context apparently more favorable than today, the liberation movements prepared to seize state power and then use it to transform society.
Decolonization, in the previous Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique in the mid-1970s, Zimbabwe in 1980, Namibia in 1990, and South Africa in 1994, brought to power anti-colonial liberation movements that took control of the state machinery and reorganized themselves as political parties. But the inherited terrain on which the liberation movements found themselves was in many ways not the one they had prepared for. The independence process, particularly for Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa, was internationally monitored and legitimated, and led to the establishment of constitutional or parliamentary democracies in line with the Western liberal democratic model. Thus the transfer of power came about through negotiation, not through insurrection, and in a changed, post-Cold War international context in which the forces of globalization and neoliberalism are hegemonic.
In the post-colonial era, the revolutionary liberation parties confront the challenge of bringing about transformation through parliamentarism and other ‘reformist struggles’, armed with revolutionary strategies and theory that are not appropriate for this reality. The militaristic, top-down command that proved successful during anti-colonial struggle was hardly favorable for the durable strengthening of democratic values or norms, and has created new challenges on the difficult path to establishing robust, open and egalitarian structures and practices. In fact, confronted with the challenges of nation-building while at the same time consolidating its own power base, national liberation parties have felt the need to centralize power and promote greater party and government autonomy, echoing pre-transition ideological commitments, in order carry out complex and politically controversial economic reforms. Sadly, to varying degrees, these revolutionary liberation parties have transformed themselves into a new ruling conservative elite, often becoming the post-colonial enemies of democracy and freedom, a danger that Frantz Fanon warned against over forty years ago. (Fanon, 1963) The political direction taken by liberation parties in several southern African countries also reveals the internal contradictions and limits to emancipation in anti-colonial resistance, and the parameters for social transformation in societies with a history of armed resistance to settler colonialism.
In 1994, South Africa’s leading national liberation movement, the African National Congress, found itself on the unexpected terrain of reform, having come to power through a negotiated settlement that severely limited the possibility of bringing about radical social transformation. Since coming to power in 1994, the ANC government has adopted much of the neo-liberal logic of global capitalism, leading some critics to bemoan the ANC’s "tragic leap to the right." (Saul, 2000) Its emphasis on democratic forms of rule and good governance, the institutionalization of individual rights and capitalist market economics through a constitutional dispensation, and the scaling back of the state’s role in the economy have prompted other analysts on the left of the political spectrum to proclaim "it is the ANC that has now become the standard-bearer of liberal democracy in South Africa and the African continent." (McKinley, 2000) Confirming Fanon’s premonition of the revolutionary party and the national middle class in his chapter on "The Pitfalls of National Consciousness" in The Wretched of the Earth, Patrick Bond argues "Mbeki and his main allies have already succumbed to the class (not necessarily personalistic) limitations of post-Independence African nationalism, namely acting in close collaboration with hostile transnational corporate and multilateral forces whose interests stand directly opposed to Mbeki’s South African and African constituencies." (Bond, 2002;1)
Clearly, the accusation from the left is that the ANC sold out and has become liberal in its outlook and vision. To be sure, Thabo Mbeki and the ANC leadership’s attempts to find a ‘third way’ has moved the party to the center-ground of politics. Paradoxically, liberalism in South Africa, once considered to be the quintessential centrist doctrine, confronted with the challenge of either fighting for supremacy of the center-ground or shifting its platform either to the left or the right, chose to move to the right, becoming a euphemism for conservatism.
Yet, as long-time ANC activist and former ANC Ambassador to Sweden Raymond Suttner remarks, despite the ANC becoming more ‘liberal’, "one still finds the use of Marxist methodology or terminology in ANC circles or as the predominant mode of expression in ANC pronouncements." (Suttner, 2002; 56) The quick dismissal of the ANC for becoming a liberal party by some leftist critics fails to explain the persistence of radical rhetoric and Marxist discourse, and how this may in fact contribute rather than hinder the adoption of a liberal framework – particularly with regards to the reorganization of state/society relations in post-apartheid society. Such perspectives also overlook areas where the ANC’s philosophy diverges with liberalism, which has been particularly acute with regards to the issue of socio-economic rights in South Africa.
In this paper, I argue that the ANC leadership, most of whom are former exiles and trained within the radical Leninist school of thought that gives primacy to the role of the vanguard party and the revolutionary intellectuals, are finding that the reorganization of state/society relations along conventional liberal lines is quite compatible with their own understanding of the hierarchical relationship between rulers and ruled and the primacy of leadership over mass action in processes of revolutionary change. In other words, the reorganization of society along liberal lines seems in many ways compatible with Leninist vanguardism, especially in the context of structural reform after attaining state power, as opposed to revolutionary struggle against the state.
This paper assesses the similarities between liberalism and vanguardism by providing a broad outline of both approaches to political change, especially in the context of African decolonization. I will demonstrate that both agendas, anchored in the tradition of the nation-state, conceive of change in narrowly statist terms despite their anti-statist rhetoric. Furthermore, both visions of societal transformation and reorganization are elitist in that they neglect the role of the popular masses in processes of change. Liberals advocate gradual, rational, managed change implemented by political leaders and an elite intelligensia. Leninist vanguardists push for faster, revolutionary change, but it is the role of an elite, revolutionary vanguard that is central to such change. Similarly, while both doctrines profess a stated belief in the rule of the people, i.e. democracy, democracy is defined as a situation in which experts and elites represent the people, and are allowed to make the essential political decisions, promoting the rule of the few, at least supposedly, in the interest of the many. In reality, liberalism has always supported the rule of the best, defined not by birth status but by educational achievement, i.e. a meritocracy. Vanguardism, too, constructs its own meritocracy, defined by a combination of educational achievement, proper political training and political lineage (in the case of African liberation movements).
This paper will then trace the influences of Leninist vanguardism within the ANC and the broader liberation movement. It will demonstrate that despite its radical ideology and rhetoric of popular democracy and people-driven transformation, the ANC shares with most elitist, liberal political parties a similar understanding of the role of leadership, representation and participation. This paper will contribute to our understanding of why it is that liberal and radical liberation and democracy struggles in southern Africa have often yielded similar disappointing results, and suggests that the challenge for those concerned with promoting popular democracy and participatory forms of development is not simply to oppose the liberal paradigm and advocate a more radical, leftist or even socialist alternative, but to transform the very basis of state/society relations by conceptualizing new forms of political organization that emphasize participation over representation, and horizontal, decentralized decision-making over hierarchical ones.
Revolution – Project of Social Transformation and Agenda for Political Change
The transfer of state power from one class to another class is the first, the principal, the basic sign of a revolution, both in the strictly scientific and in the practical political meaning of the term. (V.I. Lenin)
As a strategy for revolutionary change, Marxism-Leninism painted an insurrectional path to "national liberation" and political change, with the seizure of state power as the ultimate goal. It is this statist paradigm, of first seizing state power and then using it to transform society, which has dominated revolutionary thought for more than a century. Indeed, what the intense debates over "reform vs. revolution" concealed was that both approaches focus on the state as the vantage point from which society can be changed. Of course, as history and especially the experience of African decolonization has shown, this turned out to be a non-debate.
As a model for national liberation movements engaged in anti-colonial struggle, Marxism-Leninism, but especially the writings of Lenin, were particularly appealing. Lenin followed Marx in insisting on the presence and active role of the working class in the struggle for democratic revolution. However, he argued that given its lack of cohesiveness and limited focus, the working class requires the ideological and organizational guidance of a communist vanguard party in order to perform its historical role. Vanguardism, as a strategy for political action, gives primacy to leadership and hierarchical organization over the decentralized and more spontaneous actions of the masses. It is a central component of Leninism’s model of revolution as highly calculated and precisely executed by professional revolutionaries. Lenin explained,
This struggle must be organized, according to "all the rules of the art", by people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activity. The fact that the masses are spontaneously being drawn into the movement does not make the organization of this struggle less necessary…it makes it more necessary. (Lenin, 1967; 108)
Democratic centralism is another defining principle of Leninism, premised on the belief that a unified, hierarchical organizational structure, whereby advice flowed from the bottom up and decisions from the top down, is the most efficacious.
The determination of political decisions would therefore become the prerogative of the party while ‘democratic centralism’ would serve as the guiding organizational principle to insure discipline. Thus, where an individual might wish to dissent from a party decision in private, he or she would have to support that same decision in public. (Bronner, 1988; 178)
Lenin’s preoccupation with tight organization, controlled and planned revolutionary action, unity of purpose, and vigilance against counter-revolutionary forces led him to define the revolutionary vanguard in elitist and even undemocratic terms. Under conditions of revolutionary struggle, he believed the vanguard party would need to operate in great secrecy and may even be conspiratorial.
In form such a strong revolutionary organization in an autocratic country may also be described as a "conspiratorial" organization…Secrecy is such a necessary condition for this kind of organization that all the other conditions (number and selection of members, functions, etc.) must be made to conform to it. (Lenin, 1967, 133)
Of course, one sees a degree of ambivalence in the collection of Lenin’s work, and clearly his own prescriptions were responding to the objective and subjective historical conditions that he and the revolutionary movement faced at the time. For example, Lenin’s polemic against spontaneism in What Is To Be Done? was in direct response to what he viewed as the primitivism of various factions of the revolutionary movement, including the Russian labor movement, and their disorganized and spontaneous actions. It was written prior to the experience of the Soviets, that demonstrated the autonomous revolutionary ability of the Russian labor movement. Similarly, these considerations on the function of the vanguard party and the role of democratic centralism have been frequently challenged within Marxism and outside of it, particularly as these practices became distorted in the post-revolutionary Soviet Union, especially under Stalin.
But for our purposes, what is important to highlight is Leninism’s appeal for African anti-colonial movements as a theory of proletarian insurrection against the bourgeoisie, and especially as a theory of anti-imperialism that it increasingly became; as well as where there may be points of agreement between Lenin’s theory and liberal understandings of political change. Lenin was particularly appealing to nationalist liberation movements throughout Africa who were struggling for political independence and self-determination of the oppressed black majority. In the context whereby colonialism was viewed primarily as a denial of sovereignty (rather than simply a denial of rights), Lenin’s revolutionary strategy to seize power was particularly attractive. Freedom fighters and post-independence leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah were clearly not only inspired by Lenin and but used him to interpret the national and global conditions they confronted. Ali Mazrui, who once dubbed Nkrumah "the Leninist Czar", argued that not only did Nkrumah emulate Lenin with his great belief in organization, but that his concept of African Unity was ‘in a sense an extension of the Leninist principle of organization.’ (Mazrui, 1966;117) Mazrui’s assessment of Nkrumah may be an extreme case, but many Africa freedom fighters were influenced by Lenin’s teachings.
However, there was a rival path that the struggle for the self-determination of the peripheral areas of the world or decolonialization could (and did) take, and this was the one mapped out by American liberal Woodrow Wilson. Wilsonianism was based on classical liberal presuppositions such as individual freedom and individual rights, an emphasis on procedural safeguards such as the rule of law, and an acceptance of the normalcy of political change and the inevitability of social progress. As Immanuel Wallerstein remarks, "The principle of self-determination, the centerpiece of Wilsonianism, was nothing but the principle of individual freedom transposed to the level of the inter-state system." (Wallerstein, 1995;109)
The liberal approach espoused by Wilson differed from that of Lenin’s in that it favored a "constitutional" path to decolonization that would gradually and orderly transfer power to Africans through negotiations between the imperial power and representatives of the people, over a revolutionary/insurrectionary one. Yet, the intensity of the ideological conflict during the Cold War concealed some basic points of agreement. For example, both doctrines shared a similar understanding of who was to lead the struggle for self-determination. Wilsonian liberals saw the natural leadership of a national movement to lie in its intelligentsia and bourgeoisie. Leninists saw the leadership to lie in a party/movement modeled on the Bolshevik party. The leaders could be (and often were) "petty bourgeois", provided they were "revolutionary" petty bourgeois. As Wallerstein reminds us,
Often, the respectable intelligensia/bourgeoisie and the so-called revolutionary petty bourgeoisie were in reality the same people, or at least cousins. And the party/movement was almost as frequent a formula of "Wilsonian" movements as of "Leninist" ones. (Wallerstein, 1995; 112)
For liberalism and Leninist vanguardism alike, the task of political transformation could not be left to ordinary people, but required a select group of political elite to plan and execute the process. Liberals, Wallerstein explains,
believed political change was inevitable, but they also believed that it would lead to the good society only insofar as the process was rational, that is, that social decisions were the product of careful intellectual analysis. It was therefore crucial that the actual policies be conceived and implemented by those who had the greatest capacity for making such rational decisions, that is, by the technicians or specialists. It was they who could best elaborate the necessary reforms that could, and would, perfect the system in which they lived. (Wallerstein, 1995; 149)
Indeed, liberalism has always been much more concerned with ‘rule of the best’ rather than ‘rule of the whole’. Liberals defined the best, not by birth status but rather by educational achievement.
The best were thus not the hereditary nobility but the beneficiaries of meritocracy. But the best were always a group smaller than the whole. Liberals wanted rule by the best – aristocracy – precisely in order not to have rule by the whole – democracy. (Wallerstein, 1995; 257)
Lenin’s notion of an elite vanguard in the form of the party also ascribes to a select group of intellectuals the task of thinking and acting on behalf of the masses. Lenin argued,
On their own uneducated and oppressed workers would only be able to develop a ‘trade union consciousness’ and so lose sight of their revolutionary mission. For this reason, a ‘vanguard party’ was necessary which would inject the required revolutionary consciousness into the working class ‘from without’. (Bronner, 1988; 178)
While democracy was historically the objective of the radicals (socialists) - those who were truly antisystemic - the very notion of a revolutionary vanguard introduced an anti-democratic element into such radical struggles. Indeed for Lenin, democracy was not something to strive for in the context of revolutionary struggle. Lenin argued that the ‘the broad democratic principle of party organization’ was "a useless and harmful toy".
It is a useless toy because, in point of fact, no revolutionary organization has ever practiced, or could practise, broad democracy, however much it may have desired to do so. It is a harmful toy because any attempt to practice "the broad democratic principle" will simply facilitate the work of the police in carrying out large-scale raids, will perpetuate the prevailing primitiveness, and will divert the thoughts of the practical workers from the serious and pressing task of training themselves to become professional revolutionaries to that of drawing up detailed "paper" rules for election systems. (Lenin, 1967 [1902]; 136)
Post-decolonization, the two paths to independence produced opposing foreign policies, with liberal governments leaning towards the U.S. camp and socialist governments leaning towards the U.S.S.R. However, the internal realities of the various states, particularly in the political arena were quite similar. In terms of actual political structures, most of the states were either de facto or de jure one-party states or military dictatorships. Even when states had a multiparty system, post-independence politics tended to be dominated by one party, whose legitimacy to rule stemmed from their emergence from the decolonization process as democratically elected representatives of the majority of the people.
In southern Africa, a clear example of this is Zimbabwe, where the Zimbabwe African National Union-Popular Front’s (ZANU-PF) ability to maintain power since independence in 1980 paradoxically stems largely from the model of multi-party democracy which the ruling party has successfully manipulated.
It is a model which has mixed western-style liberal democratic political constructs with ZANU-PF’s increasing partisan domination of state and civil society, to produce a pro forma democracy that evokes little popular enthusiasm and diminishes active participation from ordinary Zimbabweans. (Saunders, 1995;6)
Once attaining state power and operating on the terrain of reform, vaguardism, as an organizing strategy, in fact tends to organize society along similar lines as liberalism. Vanguardism encourages the liberal division between state and society, and the central role of the state and intellectuals in implementing reform. For example, as Hannah Arendt’s analysis of revolutions describes, the ready-made programs of the revolutionary vanguard party reasserted the hierarchical and oligarchic relationship between rulers and ruled by making a distinction ‘between the party experts who knew and the mass of the people who were supposed to apply this knowledge.’ (Arendt, 1963; 264)
Furthermore, Lenin’s vanguard party shares commonalities with all political parties, liberal and otherwise, by virtue of the nature of the party system as a form of political organization whose primary function is representation, not participation. As Arendt argues,
Parties, because of their monopoly of nomination, cannot be regarded as popular organs, but…are, on the contrary, the very efficient instruments through which the power of the people is curtailed and controlled…Hence, from the very beginning, the party as an institution presupposed either that the citizen’s participation in public affairs was guaranteed by other public organs, or that such participation was not necessary and that the newly admitted strata of the population should be content with representation, or, finally, that all political questions in the welfare state are ultimately problems of administration, to be handled and decided by experts, in which case even the representatives of the people hardly possess an authentic area of action, but are administrative officers, whose business, though in the public interest, in not essentially different from the business of private management. (Arendt, 1963; 269 & 272)
This distinction between the party and popular-democratic organs, or the leaders and the masses is one that Frantz Fanon warned anti-colonial movements against. (Fanon, 1963) Indeed the complex interplay that emerged during the liberation struggles, between the imperatives of leadership, organization and coordination on the one hand, and spontaneous, decentralized mass action on the other continue to shape and limit the possibilities for transformation post-independence.
The Anti-Apartheid Struggle
The ANC conceptualized the revolutionary struggle in narrowly statist terms. Consistent with the dominant thinking about revolution for most of the 20th Century, the ANC perceived the winning of state power was seen as the centerpiece of the revolutionary process, the hub from which revolutionary change will radiate. This was clearly conveyed by former ANC President Oliver Tambo, whose words and message became part of the ANC psyche, when he stated,
All revolutions are about state power. Ours is no exception. The slogan "power to the people" means one thing and one thing only. It means we seek to destroy the power of apartheid tyranny and replace it with popular power with a government whose authority derives from the will of all our people both black and white. (Tambo, Sechaba, Presidential Statement, March 1984)
The national character of the liberation struggle, and the focus on overthrowing the state is understandable given the emphasis on self-determination and sovereignty in the struggle, which the black majority had been denied through apartheid. Indeed the ideologies of nationalism and pan-Africanism/black consciousness were quite strong within the ANC, and were used to stress unity and homogeneity against apartheid divisiveness. Nationalism identified the nation with the national liberation movement, as captured in the slogan "The ANC is the nation", further strengthening the conviction that the goal of the struggle was to achieve state power. (Suttner, 2002a)
The ANC has long been considered a ‘broad church’ because it is said to comprise multiple, and often competing, political tendencies and beliefs. In addition, as the ANC was operating as a liberation movement in exile, a vibrant, mass, popular-democratic movement emerged inside the country with many of the organizations, most notably the trade union federation COSATU, being aligned with the ANC. This mass democratic movement espoused other brands of Marxism such as workerism as well as the values of popular-democracy and non-racialism, and generated organizational structures and forms very different to that of the ANC in exile. Once the ANC was unbanned in 1990 these competing political tendencies clashed with some of the practices and ideologies of the ANC in exile. Interestingly, despite the existence of a widespread popular-democratic movement that espoused alternative ideologies, many of the practices and ideologies of the ANC in exile became dominant within the organization. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper, these competing political tendencies within the broad democratic movement continue to shape the possibilities for transformation in South Africa. (see Johnson, 2001)
The ANC’s revolutionary strategy consisted of four pillars, international support, mass action, underground activity and the armed struggle. In practice the armed struggle was the central one of these four pillars. "It conformed to the Marxist-Leninist tradition, established in 1917, of seeking power by force rather than other means. Successful guerilla wars in Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe seemed to indicate that the same formula would succeed in South Africa." (Ellis and Sechaba, 1992; 200) With the turn to armed struggle, its reorganization as an exiled liberation movement aimed at seizing state power, and its links with the South African Communist Party, the ANC was increasingly influenced by communist-style bureaucratic methods of work and a vanguard Leninist strategy with democratic centralism as its organizing principle. Many ANC members received training in the Soviet Union as well as other socialist countries, and were taught Marxism-Leninism. Vivienne Taylor observed that many activists spoke about "studying the Marxist classics. Several mentioned gaining access to banned works such as Lenin’s What Is To Be Done?" (Taylor, 1997; 85)
Indeed, the pages of Sechaba, the ANC journal in exile, were littered with references to Marx and Lenin. Lenin’s Two Tactics of Social Democracy, and other works, were quoted at length as a "how to" guide for waging revolution. The ANC leadership also adopted Leninist language and phraseology. In an exchange with U.S.-based Marxist scholar Robert Fatton over the direction of the ANC’s struggle, Thabo Mbeki proudly proclaimed,
The African National Congress is the vanguard organization of the South African movement for national liberation. In its daily activities, it works to mobilize into action all national groups, classes, and strata that share an objective interest in the destruction of the apartheid system of white minority colonial and racist domination, the super-exploitation of the black working people, fascist tyranny, external aggression, and imperialist expansionism, and that are therefore willing to sacrifice for the victory of the national democratic revolution. (Mbeki, 1984;611&612)
Indeed the ANC long considered itself to be at the top of the hierarchy of the broad anti-apartheid movement, believing, as Lenin did, in the primacy of political leadership and organization over spontaneous, decentralized actions. ‘Invoking (Leninist) tradition’, the ANC’s Strategy and Tactics document adopted at Morogoro in 1969 clearly states,
The primacy of the political leadership is unchallenged and supreme and all revolutionary formations and levels (whether armed or not) are subordinate to this leadership…This approach is rooted in the very nature of this type of revolutionary struggle and is borne out by the experience of the overwhelming majority of revolutionary movements which have engaged in such struggles….The masses of the peasants, workers and youth, beleaguered for a long time by the enemy’s military occupation, have to be activated in a multitude of ways not only to ensure a growing stream of recruits for the fighting units but to harass the enemy politically so that his forces are dispersed and therefore weakened.
The activation of the masses was the task of the ANC underground units that were developed along the Leninist model of an underground professional revolutionary vanguard. Elitist in character, these ‘advanced elements’ acted on behalf of others that had to be awakened to their potential power. Perhaps it is symptomatic that an underground journal, which was written and produced, by three successive groups of underground activists in the 1970s was called Vukani!/Awake! Without it being articulated at the time, clearly the groups had the idea or assumption that they possessed insights that were needed to wake up the masses from their slumber. This vision and strategy promulgated by the underground units is reminiscent of one of the journals produced by Lenin called Iskra meaning ‘spark’, and Lenin’s notion of small groups of professional revolutionary serving as the vanguard for the masses.
Indeed, the top-down, bureaucratic organizational structure of the ANC in exile provided strong coordination, discipline and direction for the anti-apartheid struggle in the context of enormous military pressures and dangers of infiltration, but also introduced an elitist character to the struggle, and reasserted a hierarchical, oligarchic relationship between rulers and ruled. Reflecting on the impact of Marxism-Leninism on the ANC and the struggle, Ellis and Sechaba write,
The (Communist) Party’s practice of democratic centralism, which it inculcated in the ANC, may also have contributed to the ineffectiveness of the armed struggle. In the end both the Party and the ANC in exile came to be run by a nomenklatura, an elite which, whatever its original merits may have been, grew distant from the mass of its supporters, lost their confidence, and did not listen to their voices." (Ellis and Sechaba, 1992; 202)
The elitist nature of the ANC leadership surely contributed to its willingness to negotiate behind closed doors with the apartheid rulers South Africa’s transition to democratic government. The 1994 political settlement established South Africa as a liberal democracy, with a constitution that enshrines many liberal values – the rule of law, a bill of rights protecting fundamental freedoms, and an independent constitutional court. In the economic sphere, the ANC government has also moved to conform to dominant neoliberal prescriptions and the imperatives of the global capitalist economy with its macroeconomic framework GEAR. Since taking power, the ANC has shown such a willingness to transform South African society along liberal lines that South African liberals now claim some of the ANC leadership, most notably Nelson Mandela, as one of their own. (Laurence, 1998; 49)
Indeed, liberals argue that the early members of the ANC were essentially constitutional liberals in outlook. Peter Walshe writes of them,
[They] were the products of missionary education – ministers, teachers, clerks, interpreters, a few successful farmers, builders, small-scale traders, compound managers, estate and labour agents. They were not trade unionists, nor were they socially radical…they were setting out to attain what they considered their constitutional rights – equality of opportunity within the economic life and political institutions of the wider society. They believed Western and Christain norms to be closely interrelated, and accepted the Cape qualified franchise as their ideal. (Walshe, 1970; 34)
For much of the history of the ANC and the anti-apartheid struggle, however, many black anti-apartheid activists were hostile towards liberalism. For example, Steve Biko, founder of the Black Consciousness Movement, wrote in the early 1970s,
The biggest mistake the black world ever made was to assume that whoever opposed apartheid was an ally…Although he [the typical liberal] does not vote for the Nationalists (now that they are in the majority anyway), he feels secure under the protection offered by the Nationalists and subconsciously shuns the idea of change. (Biko, 1978)
Historically in South Africa, the term liberal was applied to whites that opposed racial discrimination and favored the extension of rights to the black majority. Under apartheid, white liberals found their home in the old Progressive Party (forerunner to the present-day Democratic Party). The founding principles of the Progressive Party included many liberal tenets, but did not include a universal franchise, as at the time this was considered "too radical". (Owen, 2002)
In the liberal tradition, apartheid was a denial of rights. White liberals opposed racial discrimination and supported a non-racial meritocracy, assuming this would produce equality of opportunity and freedom from racial oppression. From the liberal perspective, reconciliation between the races was viewed as a political necessity. Thus with the holding of the first democratically elected government in 1994 and the subsequent ratification of South Africa’s new Constitution in 1996 democratic change had been achieved. For liberals, these events served as the end point in the struggle for democratic transformation in South Africa.
The "ironic victory" that liberalism appeared to have won with the democratic transition in 1994 did not signal the liberal triumph however. In post-apartheid South Africa, with the ANC increasingly becoming a centrist party to make itself more acceptable in international circles, liberalism has become decidedly illiberal, shifting its platform to the right. Liberalism is in a crisis, as witnessed by the recent failings of the Democratic Alliance, the opposition alliance that the liberal Democratic Party forged with the old apartheid voting block represented by the New National Party (NNP); as well as South African liberals inability to engage with the stark realities of massive inequality and demands for socio-economic rights. These are issues to which we will return at the end of the paper.
Liberal Framework or Liberation Framework in Post-Apartheid South Africa?
The unbanning of the national liberation movements on February 2, 1990 came as a surprise to the exiled leaders of the ANC. Quite dramatically the nature of struggle had changed, and the national liberation movement found itself on the unexpected terrain where political and diplomatic tactics were required rather than military ones. Having operated clandestinely for more than three decades, living with the fear of attack or assassination, the ANC had difficulty adapting itself to legality. As a liberation movement largely in exile and faced with enormous military pressures and dangers of infiltration by the apartheid regime, the ANC’s commitment to a vanguard Leninist strategy that emphasized democratic centralism and top-down command proved successful in providing strong coordination, discipline and direction for the anti-apartheid struggle. The ANC’s continued reliance on a Leninist mode of conceiving of the transition shaped its approach to political change in several ways. As Ellis and Sechaba explain,
its dogmatic pursuit of the Soviet line for so long had blinded it to certain realities and deprived it of some obvious assets. A good example of this is the strong dislike of the USA engendered by the Soviet connection, which caused the ANC to miss many opportunities to promote its cause in the world’s most powerful country over three decades. (Ellis and Sechaba, 1992; 198)
More importantly, by following the fundamentally insurrectionist Leninist paradigm of transition the ANC did not give enough weight to the range of transformations that are necessary to achieve fundamental change. As Raymond Suttner remarked,
There is a tendency to devalue parliamentarism and other ‘reformist struggles’ except insofar as these build up revolutionary momentum towards a decisive moment when there will be seizure of power. In other words, what you do at any particular moment prior to seizure is only important as a contribution to seizure not it itself. In that sense, we were poorly prepared by our theory for the type of conditions we in fact confront. (Suttner, 2002a; 6)
While the Leninist paradigm of transition places little weight on reforms as structural possibilities of engagement and transformation, it also downplays the role of the masses, which meant the ANC was more inclined to accept an elite-pacted negotiated settlement. Indeed, the very notion of elite-pacting and negotiations is premised on the assumption that negotiations cannot be conducted by the masses themselves, at venues other than the bargaining table, but must be entered into on their behalf by a leadership that ostensibly speaks for them. (Ginsburg, 1996)
Shortly after its unbanning, the ANC came under tremendous international pressure to moderate its aspirations for socio-economic transformation, and become more acceptable to powerful vested interests as a precondition for achieving a smooth transition. (Saul, 1999; 58) The ‘government-in-waiting’ was compelled to become more liberal, to engage with capital, and to adapt to the seeming imperatives of the global capitalist economy. Membership in the SACP, which had previously been an advantage in the liberation movement as they were seen as "the most advanced cadres", now became a handicap. Nearly half of the national leadership of the SACP allowed their membership to lapse. Those who left made no critique of the Party, nor of Marxism or Communist practices. (Suttner, 2002b) Similarly, there has been no open debate or genuine introspection on the part of the ANC leadership on the implications of demise of Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and the shifting terrain on national democratic revolution (NDR), despite the fact that the ANC has had 3 major conferences since its unbanning in 1990. (Zitha, 2002)
In contrast, the South African Communist Party and members of the South African left have engaged in considerable introspection and self-criticism. This process began with Joe Slovo’s personal reflection on the history of Eastern European Communism in his essay entitled Has Socialism Failed?, a document that was later adopted as the Party line. In it he acknowledged the lack of democracy in Eastern Europe, the failings of Stalinism, and the necessity of maintaining a multi-party system in a future South Africa. (Ellis and Sechaba, 1992; 197) This process caused the SACP to modify its traditional line, dropping certain formulations like ‘democratic centralism’ that still remain part of ANC doctrine and discourse.
Ironically, one still finds the use of Marxist methodology or terminology in ANC circles or as the predominant mode of expression in ANC pronouncements. Indeed the ANC leadership still uses the language of insurrectionism and militarism while pursuing an agenda of reform. It still has militaristic, top-down concepts of organization, even though the terrain is no longer that of warfare. Its discourse is still Marxist while denying Marxism. Such observations have caused some SACP members to wryly remark, "the SACP abandoned Stalinism but retained Marxism while the ANC abandoned Marxism but retained Stalinism." (Suttner, 2002b)
Again, the point is not to suggest that the ANC is Marxist/Leninist or even Stalinist. It is simply to show how ideological convictions that have their roots in the national liberation struggle can profoundly affect action by creating in political actors the psychological predisposition to interpret a situation in a given way.
For example, democratic centralism, tight internal discipline and strong central coordination continue to be the main organizing principles of the ANC. An ANC Discussion Document on "Organizational Democracy and Discipline in the Movement" states that "the ANC is not a federal organization and that central leadership structures occupy an important position in defining policy and implementing that policy which affects each level of organization." (ANC, 1997 #227) Another Discussion Document circulated within the ANC in July 2000 states that "the organizational forms and practices of the ANC have always been based on democratic centralism." (ANC, 2000; #228)
The continuation of such practices has prompted accusations that the boundaries for opposition and debate within government and within the ANC and the tripartite alliance have narrowed. Some suggest there were early indications that the ANC leadership was developing an intolerance for divergent perspectives from within the ranks. Long-time ANC cultural activist, Mike Van Graan, publicly stated what many others in the alliance privately felt,
Those of us who fought alongside you against apartheid thought that now we will have the space to create, to sing, to laugh, to criticize…We were wrong. We now realize that space can never be assumed; it must be fought for. Of course, some of us will yield to the temptations you offer, many will conform to the new status quo (already self-censorship and fear of criticizing the ANC is rife), some will go into exile and a few will say ‘Nyet’. (Van Graan, Weekly Mail, 7-13 May, 1993, quote in McKinely, 2000)
Interestingly, the heated exchanges over lack of criticism and debate within the Alliance are very often framed within the Marxist-Leninist paradigm. Not only do the SACP and other left intellectuals couch their critique of the government’s macro-economic policy, GEAR, and other neo-liberal policies of the ANC in Marxist rhetoric, but the ANC leadership, including President Mbeki have been vocal in denouncing "the offensive of the ultra-left against our movement" as counter revolutionary! (Mbeki, Umrabulo 17, 2002) One of the most recent examples of this was the paper, "Two Strategies of the National Liberation Movement in the Struggle for the Victory of the National Democratic Revolution", written by two prominent ANC leaders, Jabu Moleketi and Josiah Jele. In the paper, they lash out at what they perceive to be an "ultra-left plot" too unseat or at least undermine the ANC government, but base their critique overwhelmingly on Marxism-Leninism. In their critical analysis of Moleketi and Jele’s paper, Vukani Mde, Patrick Craven and Oupa Bodibe argue,
The irredeemably flawed methodology of analysis used be comrades Moleketi and Jele seems to have three basic strategies: McCarthyism, liberal usage of red herrings, and what can only be described as a Qur’anic approach to Marxism-Leninism…Throughout the document issues of confused rather than clarified by inserting long quotations from Marx, Engels and Lenin, which are so selective and ripped out of their historical context that they are totally irrelevant to the point the authors are trying to make. These comrades treat Marxism quite shabbily, not as a living body of historical and economic knowledge, but as a written bible of eternal truths to be pulled out of a ht and quoted extensively on any day, useful to silence the modern heretic. (Mde, Craven and Bodibe, 2002)
Other key members of the ANC leadership, including Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, Minister of Public Services, have "taken to lecturing the unions and advising them to read Lenin on the dangers of ‘infantile leftism’." (Suttner, SALB, 2002) Similarly, in an exchange between ANC stalwart Peter Mokaba and SACP Deputy General Secretary Jeremy Cronin, Mokaba, responding to the SACP’s criticisms of the ANC’s neoliberal agenda, challenged the SACP to "demonstrate their understanding of Marxism-Leninism, of socialism as a science and of socialist theory in the aftermath of the collapse of socialism." He continues, "As I understand it, to be a communist does not merely consist in owning a membership card of the SACP and mistaking trade unionism for revolutionary class consciousness. The emergence of "Communists" without Marxist-Leninism is a new and interesting experience. But it is dangerous." (Mokaba, 2001; 33) Here again, Mokaba makes the Leninist distinction between trade unionism and revolutionary class consciousness, suggesting that the former (as practiced by COSATU and also characterized as economism) can in fact work against the latter and against the ultimate goals of the NDR. It is an example of how Marxism-Leninism has been used to tame labor and shape the relationship between the government and the trade unions.
In addition, ANC continues to use Marxism-Leninism and the notion of the ANC as a vanguard party acting on behalf of the "masses" to shape the new relationship between the state and society as well. This vision was most clearly articulated in the ANC Discussion Document "The State and Social Transformation", thought to have been written by President Thabo Mbeki, who’s ideological and philosophical underpinnings are evident in much of the ANC’s recent policies. The document represents a hybrid of dominant liberal precepts, such as an impartial state, and prominent features of liberation politics, such as an interventionist state as well as the rhetoric of popular participation and people-driven development. The two frameworks can be reconciled given the consistent understanding of the role of leadership, and the relationship between rulers and ruled.
In line not only with liberal notions of a clear boundary between the state and civil society, but with vanguardist notions of a clear separation between the role of the leadership and that of the masses, the document reconstructs the terms of relations between civil society organizations and the state in a hierarchical and highly institutionalized fashion.
The issue turns on the combination of the expertise and professionalism concentrated in the democratic state and the capacity for popular-mobilization that resides within the trade unions and the genuinely representative non-governmental popular organizations. The democratic state therefore has a responsibility to ensure that this independent and representative non-governmental sector has the necessary strength to play its role in ensuring that the people themselves, and in their own interest, become conscious activists for development and social transformation (ANC, 1996)
In other words, the author ascribes to the state the role of knowledge producer, able to develop policy and set the agenda for social transformation. He restricts civil society organizations’ role to that of mobilization and implementing directives from above. He attempts to make a clear distinction between the government or party experts who ‘know’ and the mass of the people who are supposed to apply this knowledge, leaving out of the equation the capacity of the average citizen to act and to form his own opinion.
This approach purports to be anti-liberal and to support a process whereby "the people become their own governors."
The democratic movement must resist the liberal concept of "less government", which, while being presented as a philosophical approach toward the state in general, is in fact, aimed specifically at the weakening of the democratic state. The purpose of this offensive is precisely to deny the people the possibility to use the collective strength and means concentrated in the democratic state to bring about the transformation of society. (ANC, 1996)
But it is also grounded in the liberal tradition of the state as a neutral arbiter whose responsibility it is to balance the competing interests within society.
To the extent that the democratic state is objectively interested in a stable democracy, so it cannot avoid the responsibility to ensure the establishment of a social order concerned with the genuine interests of the people as a whole, regardless of the racial, national, gender and class differentiation. There can be no stable democracy unless the democratic state attends to the concerns of the people as a whole and take responsibility for the evolution of a new society. (ANC, 1996)
Furthermore, by virtue of its impartiality, the democratic state is seen as the only legitimate expression of the interests of the whole nation, becoming coterminous with the ‘national interest’ or the ‘public will’. At the same time all other demands or proposals for social change emanating from outside the state are viewed as partial, subjective or sectarian, regardless of the legitimacy of the demands.
At its core, this framework is inherently statist given its understanding of the primacy of leadership and the vanguard ruling party and that it leaves no room for popular political participation outside the state or the ruling party. Instead it advocates a corporatist arrangement whereby popular-democratic organizations and incorporated into the state, and all politics is reduced to state politics.
Concerning the most powerful, organized, and popular voice in civil society, the author warns,
The instinct towards "economism" on the part of the ordinary workers has to be confronted through the positioning of the legitimate material demands and expectations of these workers within the wider context of the defence of the democratic gains as represented by the establishment of the democratic state…If the democratic movement allowed that the subjective approach to socio-economic development represented by "economism" should overwhelm the scientific approach of the democratic movement towards such development, it could easily create the conditions for the possible counter-revolutionary defeat of the democratic revolution.
Interestingly, the ANC leadership continues to utilize the discourse of revolution and counter-revolution as well as Marxist, liberation concepts of trade union "economism" to challenge the legitimacy of worker demands, and define them as partial or sectarian. In conditions of struggle against the state it is clear the ‘economism’ of trade unions can be limiting at best. However, in conditions after the attainment of state power, for the state to berate the trade unions for ‘economism’ is to contribute to the suppression of their fight for democratic rights. This is a clear example of how a revolutionary and indeed liberatory notion of the perils of sectarian struggles and the limitations of a working class consciousness in the context of revolutionary struggle can be transformed into oppressive or reactionary ones in the context of reform.
Pressure to tow the party line and not be too critical of the leadership and its decisions has also come to bear on other organizations of civil society. Indeed it was Nelson Mandela who first publicly led the attack on those organizations of civil society who seek to play the role of "critical watchdog" over the movement, and serve as channels for grassroots communities to voice their grievances and wishes. He referred to similar calls made in 1990, with the unbanning of the ANC, to retain the grassroots structures of the United Democratic Front (UDF) as an independent movement alongside the ANC. Mandela described such past and recent proposals coming from popular organizations within civil society as posing an "illegitimate challenge" to the leading political role of the ANC and the government.
Indeed the ANC leadership and liberal politicians have found common agreement when it comes to promoting an apolitical role for civil society. This was clearly demonstrated during the 2001 Civil Society Initiative conference convened by former NP politician Roelf Meyer and attended by prominent national and international leaders including former presidents Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton. The theme of the conference as well as the overall initiative was one of encouraging the spirit of volunteering and self-help, promoting social partnerships between government and civil society organisations, and defining an apolitical role for civil society organisations as assistants to government in service delivery. In his address to the conference, Meyer explained:
The CSI holds the view that in South Africa civil society forms part of a social partnership with the state and with business. It works alongside government and business to further the common national interest in a non-political arena (National Civil Society Conference 2001).
Other speakers, many of whom are leading figures in the ANC, either inside government or outside of it, reiterated the basic message that civil society had to recast itself, move out of the political arena, and focus on voluntary service to communities.
Where the ANC leadership and liberalism have largely diverged has been around socio-economic rights and the issue of balancing political and socio-economic rights. This became clear during the South African Human Rights Commission’s Inquiry into Racism in the Media in 2000. With regards to the need to balance the socio-economic rights of its citizens and poverty alleviation measures with pressures for economic discipline liberals have remained rather silent, leaving this debate to occur mainly within the tri-partite Alliance. As Richard Calland has argued,
Liberal thought can no longer cope with the imperative of contemporary politics and of the harsh global environment of massive inequality. Inidividual rights and freedoms, useful though they are in overturning dictatorships, are blunt instruments in the quest for meaningful socio-economic justice." (Calland, 2002)
While the ANC leadership appears to have chosen a centrist path to transformation, justifying and legitimating its actions with revolutionary rhetoric and Marxist garb, the path is not yet fixed and there remains vibrant criticism, contestation and debate within the Alliance. On the other hand, liberalism has all but excused itself from the debate, largely resigning itself to the dustbin of history.
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper has not been to engage in a reductionist analysis of classic Marxist texts (although parts of it may read that way). In contrast, it is to illuminate the complexity of the South African situation. In this paper I have sought to demonstrate the degree of subliminal ideological accord between liberalism and Leninist vanguardism as well as the extent to which the liberal framework is consistent with a Leninist liberation framework. I have argued that while we may characterize South Africa as a liberal democracy, the ANC is not particularly a liberal party, nor is its discourse or worldview grounded in liberalism. In contrast I suggest that the ANC continues to use much of the liberation, insurrection discourse from the anti-apartheid struggle, which is the context of revolutionary struggle served a progressive role in broadening and strengthening the struggle, but in the context of reform is potentially reactionary. I suggest that the ANC leadership’s training and adherence to Leninist principles of democratic centralism and the notion of the vanguard party have not hindered its willingness or ability to conform to the dominant liberal framework, but have in fact facilitated it. By understanding these peculiar dynamics of the South African context we can better appreciate the parameters and social constraints to transformation in southern African societies with a history of settler colonialism and armed resistance to it.
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