National Democratic
Revolution, Part 10a
ANC Strategy
and Tactics, 2012 Preface
This is the last item of the CU series on the National Democratic
Revolution. It is the second in this
final part, where the main document is SARS Chapters 4 and 5. The attached booklet-printable
document, also linked below, is the Preface to the ANC Strategy and Tactics document.
This new Preface was passed by the 53rd ANC National Conference at Mangaung,
while the main document remains as it was passed at the previous, 2012
Polokwane Conference.
Static or revolutionary?
The ANC Strategy and Tactics has
been amended several times since the original was adopted in Morogoro in 1969.
The ANC 52nd National
Conference at Polokwane in 2007 was considered a victory for the popular forces
within the ANC. But the “S&T” document launched at that Conference was arguably
a revision of the previously much clearer understanding of class and colour
in South Africa. It is somewhat ambiguous, or indeterminate, about the
role of the various “motive forces”, which are what the communists would
normally refer to as classes.
The current, Polokwane version
of the S&T is characterised by a static and non-revolutionary conception of
“National Democratic Society”. The theoreticians of the ANC felt compelled to
propose an end-point to the process that is the NDR. The “National Democratic
Society” or NDS is described as an ideal society, but it is not called
socialist.
The new Preface elevates the
NDS to headline status (“Decisive and sustained action to build a National
Development Society”). The Preface also deals, among others, with
Organisational Renewal and with the Second Phase of the Transition, as
conceived of by the ANC.
The SACP continues to
describe the NDR as the shortest road to socialism, but the ANC does not.
Yet the ANC remains exactly
what it was intended to be, which is a liberation movement, and as such, a vehicle
for class alliance within the National Democratic Revolution. It conforms
perfectly to the vision that Lenin articulated in 1920, as seen in Part 2 of this course.
The ANC is a historic movement
of intelligent, energetic people. It has its own view of what it is and what
its goals are, which may be at variance with reality as seen by, for example,
the communists. It could hardly be otherwise. Everyone should respect the
sincere critique that is the S&T, and hope to learn from it.
Nevertheless, the NDR has to
be more than a set of tick-boxes (united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist
and prosperous). It has to be alive, and capable of more than the achievement
of pre-conceived outcomes. That is what development means. We have not yet
arrived at a closure of the NDR. The struggle continues.
N.B., in the
glossary at the bottom of the Strategy and Tactics
document, a definition is given that recognises people’s power as the aim of
the NDR. It says:
National Democratic Revolution: A process
of struggle that seeks to transfer power to the people and
transform society into a non-racial, non-sexist, united, democratic
one, and changes the manner in which wealth is shared, in order to
benefit all the people.
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: Preface to Strategy and Tactics, ANC, 2012.
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