“The ANC does not believe in socialism, we are a broad national movement, which combines various strands of political thought, ranging from the far right to the extreme left, embracing liberal and conservative views.”
Do these words mean anything?
The ANC styles itself as the “glorious movement of the people” largely because of the quality of leadership the organisation commanded over the years – which mirrored a deep political acumen that has been the trademark of the movement.
These are words of former president Nelson Mandela explaining the position of the ANC as he sought to refute the often-held views that his party’s political outlook was monolithic – subscribing to a narrow political worldview to the exclusion of others.
The ANC at its formation in 1912 saw itself, as described by Oliver Tambo, as the national movement with regional appeal with its roots spread across various parts of Africa, including Botswana, Lesotho, Zambia and Zimbabwe, among others – a broad church whose ideological moorings were wide-ranging and peppered with varying perspectives outside of itself.
In its belly, it was easy to find ANC members who were intellectuals, trade unionists, socialists, communists, capitalists, members of the working class and traditionalists, among others, coexisting, each holding in delicate tension views that were at variance with each other’s, this without causing internal political ruction within the national movement that the ANC had become.
Many within the movement were keenly aware of political development and revolutions brewing in other parts of the world, witnessing with keen interest the development unfolding in other parts of the world, including the brewing Russian Revolution from 1917 – five years after the formation of the ANC.
The formation of the Bolsheviks in Russia, a far-left movement led by Vladimir Lenin, inspired many within the organisation, and by force of attraction saw them gravitating towards communism and swelling the ranks of the emerging Communist Party of South Africa, the forerunner of the SA Communist Party formed in 1921.
As the world increasingly became a global village, events in the Soviet Russia were bound to influence a revolutionary fervour in South Africa. With the formation of the ANC in 1912, a period close to the Russian Revolution of 1917, it was understandable that communism in South Africa would also take root.
If, in the words of Madiba, the ANC did not see socialism as a guiding light, this did not mean this should be construed to mean the organisation was intolerable to comrades who subscribed to communism or socialism as an ideology. The broad-church ANC ideal dispels such a contradiction. To make the point clearer, in one meeting in the early 1980s, when as president of the ANC Tambo was hosted by the US-based Washington Press Club, he was asked to clarify the organisation’s policies as they related to communism.
Tambo admitted to the press club that he and Mandela hated communism with a passion, and were hell-bent to chase communists away from the ANC.
However, rationality, since the ANC was conceived as a broad-based national movement, began to dawn on them. As in Damascene’s moment, they began to see light in a different way, which is that if the ANC was a national movement, and therefore a broad church, tolerating diverse school of thoughts was a natural thing to do. So, quickly, Tambo and Mandela embraced the philosophy that “if there is a communist in the party, that communist must also by extension be a member of the ANC”.
The ANC in its 112 years of existence, enters in this election year its most difficult phase. The alliances it forged during the long struggle years have weakened, and the movement no longer has at its disposal the wise leadership of Tambo and Mandela to keep a tight ship.
Trade union formation, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa a loyal member of Cosatu and the ANC, was expelled from the labour federation in 2014, and so walked away into political wilderness. Such defections have also befallen other structures such as Cosatu which broke into two pieces as well as the formation of the EFF, whose leaders were expelled from the ANC with COPE also, in its new format, walking away from the ANC.
So, the glorious movement of the people makes its way to the election polls on May 29 with great uncertainty. Perhaps its saving grace lies in the fact that political organisations in SA themselves lack the firepower to unseat the ANC without resorting to coalition arrangements.
- Mdhlela is the acting news editor of Sunday World, an Anglican priest and former editor of the South African Human Rights Commission journals
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