30 March 2010

Gramsci: Lenin’s contemporary

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Gramsci: Lenin’s contemporary

It is a mistake to treat Antonio Gramsci’s contribution to political thought as substantially separated in time, or in content, from that of Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik revolutionary internationalists who were his contemporaries. Gramsci was in Moscow in 1922 and 1923 and met and married his wife there. As a representative of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), Gramsci was familiar with the workings of the Comintern.

Lenin died in 1924. Gramsci was imprisoned by the Italian fascists in November, 1926, and not released until just before his death, eleven years later, in 1937.

The unfinished document “Some Aspects of the Southern Question” (download linked below) is the last that Gramsci wrote before his incarceration. To understand its relevance to the National Democratic Revolution, one can begin with its third paragraph, where Gramsci says:

“The Northern bourgeoisie has subjugated the South of Italy and the Islands, and reduced them to exploitable colonies…”

Northern Italy, where there are many great cities (including Turin, home of the giant Fiat company) was “developed”, much as France, Germany and England were in the first quarter of the twentieth century. But south of Rome, and on the large Italian islands of Sardinia and Sicily, the people lived very differently. In many ways the situation resembled the “Colonialism of a Special Type” that was emerging in South Africa in the same period, and which lasted until the South African democratic breakthrough of the 1990s. Colonised and colonisers were present in the same territory.

The Italian Southerners were even subjected to racial contempt, such that, as Gramsci records: “It is well known what kind of ideology has been disseminated in myriad ways among the masses in the North, by the propagandists of the bourgeoisie: the South is the ball and chain which prevents the social development of Italy from progressing more rapidly; the Southerners are biologically inferior beings, semi-barbarians or total barbarians, by natural destiny…” and so on.

As a communist, Gramsci naturally advocated “the political alliance between Northern workers and Southern peasants, to oust the bourgeoisie from State power”. But he follows this bare formulation with many fascinating incidences and details about the class structure and class dynamics of Italy at the time and during the preceding three decades, which included the first world war and the subsequent rise of Mussolini’s fascists. Gramsci accompanies these narratives with an exceptional sensitivity towards the role of intellectuals, whom he comes close to treating as a distinct class.

Gramsci writes: “Intellectuals develop slowly, far more slowly than any other social group, by their very nature and historical function. They represent the entire cultural tradition of a people, seeking to resume and synthesize all of its history. This can be said especially of the old type of intellectual: the intellectual born on the peasant terrain. To think it possible that such intellectuals, en masse, can break with the entire past and situate themselves totally upon the terrain of a new ideology, is absurd. It is absurd for the mass of intellectuals, and perhaps it is also absurd for very many intellectuals taken individually as well - notwithstanding all the honourable efforts which they make and want to make.”

Yet Gramsci regards such an intellectual break as crucial, saying: “This is gigantic and difficult, but precisely worthy of every sacrifice on the part of those intellectuals - from North and South - who have understood that only two social forces are essentially national and bearers of the future: the proletariat and the peasants.”

This introduction has included a lot of quotations, so as to assist readers to navigate through this text in between the many unfamiliar names that are there.

The simple lesson is the same as that of Lenin and the Comintern: Class Alliance will solve the National Question. The Democratic Revolution is a prerequisite for the building of socialism.

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29 March 2010

Congress of the Peoples of the East

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The first anti-Imperialist international conference - 1920

The 2CCI was followed within two months by the famous “Congress of the Peoples of the East”, in Baku, convened by the Communist International in what is now the Republic of Azerbaijan [Picture: delegates to the Congress of the Peoples of the East]. Its manifesto (click the link below) makes very clear the strategic confrontation that existed following the end of hostilities, and the effective and menacing British Imperial victory, as they saw it.

This was the first international congress of oppressed nations against colonialism. It effectively launched the anti-colonial struggle on a new basis that bore major fruit less than thirty years later in the 1940s, with the independence of India and the victory of the communist revolutionaries in China.

In 1920, the First World War (the Inter-Imperialist World War) had only recently come to and end. Among other things, the conference said:

“Peoples of the East! Six years ago there broke out in Europe a colossal, monstrous slaughter…

“It was fought for the partition of the world, and chiefly for the partition of Asia, of the East. It was fought to decide who was to rule over the countries of Asia and whose slaves the peoples of the East should be. It was fought to decide whether the British or the German capitalists should skin the peasants and workers of Turkey, Persia and Egypt."

The conference manifesto goes on to detail the threat that the victorious British posed towards the Peoples of the East in their many countries, large and small. We know by now that this manifesto was not mistaken. It concludes:

Long live the unity of all the peasants and workers of the East and of the West, the unity of all the toilers, all the oppressed and exploited. Long live the battle headquarters of this united movement — the Communist International! May the holy war of the peoples of the East and of the toilers of the whole world against imperialist Britain burn with unquenchable fire!”

The Soviet Union is no more, yet the profound change in the entire world that is the consequence of the anti-colonial movement for independence and sovereignty of nations is still with us, in the form of nearly 200 independent nations, most of which did not exist, as such, at the time of the 2CCI and the Congress of the Peoples of the East in 1920, and most of which are by now national-democratic republics conforming broadly with the NDR.

For one example of how quickly the anti-colonial movement took hold, and how close to our home this movement quickly came, the Red Trade Union International (Profintern) of the Comintern, founded one year after the 2CCI, in 1921, had by 1930 organised (in Berlin) an International Conference of Negro Workers that included Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya as well as Moses Kotane, W. Thibedi and Albert Nzula of South Africa.

We should also not forget to mention the founding of the Communist Party of South Africa under the auspices of the Comintern in 1921 in this connection, because the admission of the CPSA was conditional upon its acceptance of the Comintern’s agreed policies, which included the NDR. Therefore the CPSA’s support of class alliance for national liberation and national democracy was not something that was added on later, but was fully present at the birth of the CPSA.

Another example of the swift, strong effect of the Russian Revolution and the Comintern on South Africa is the Black Republic Thesis of 1928 and all that went with it. We will come to it in the next part of this NDR Generic Course (next week). The important thing to note here is that the CPSA’s basic commitment to the NDR had already existed for years prior to the Black Republic Thesis.

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A Red Card to Corruption

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A Red Card to Corruption


Speech by the SACP General Secretary, Cde Blade Nzimande, to the SACP Anti-Corruption Seminar, Parktonian, 29 March 2010

In line with our long-standing commitment to the democratic transformation of South Africa, since our founding in 1921, and our upholding of values of sacrifice, dedication to the cause of the workers and the poor, and a principled struggle prioritise the socio economic needs of the overwhelming majority of our people, we have taken the initiative to convene this summit.

28 March 2010

Genesis of the NDR

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Genesis of the NDR

The Hammer and Sickle emblem of the communists, invented in 1917, is a symbol of class alliance between two distinct classes: proletarian workers, and peasants.

Peasants often work hard and they are often poor, but they are not the same as the working proletariat of the towns. Nor are they the same as the rural proletariat. So the hammer and the sickle are not two equal things. They represent two different things, allied.

24 March 2010

Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850

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Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850

Karl Marx, the son of a lawyer, had a doctorate and was the editor of a magazine. The first published book that he wrote, which Lenin called (in The State and Revolution) “the first mature work of Marxism” was called The Poverty of Philosophy and it was published in 1847.

23 March 2010

Permanent Revolution

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Permanent Revolution

Karl Marx’s March 1850 Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League begins by describing the working proletariat as the “only decisively revolutionary class”, and ends with a battle-cry for the workers: “The Permanent Revolution!”

21 March 2010

Origin of the National Republic

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Barricade, Rue Soufflot, Paris, February 1848, painting, Horace Vernet

Origin of the National Republic

The Great French Revolution that started in 1789 did not immediately produce a lasting democratic republic in France. Napoleon Bonaparte’s Empire, launched with a coup d’etat on 9 November 1799 had attacked feudal monarchs all over Europe. But it was followed during the next three decades by the restoration of weak versions of the French monarchy, culminating in the “July Monarchy” of Louis Philippe. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels anticipated a coming revolutionary upsurge and published the Communist Manifesto at the beginning of the revolutionary year of 1848.

20 March 2010

Battle for the nation state

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Battle for the nation state


Alex Gordon, Morning Star, London, 18 March 2010

Monopoly capital and the forces of so-called "globalisation" face yet another deep crisis. This has awakened new interest in the ideas of Karl Marx, which have proved much more resilient than the forces of imperialist globalisation have claimed.

The international banking system has been temporarily saved from complete meltdown, but only by the extensive intervention of the state with public money.

Political Overview, by President Jacob Zuma, at NEC, March 2010

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Political Overview, by President Jacob Zuma

[Address to the ANC National Executive Committee Meeting, 12-13 March, 2010]


We sometimes assume to be bigger than the ANC


This meeting of the National Executive Committee takes place less than a month after we presented the state of the nation address, and less than a month since we presented the budget speech to Parliament.

On both occasions we outlined our commitment and the programme to fight poverty, transform the economy, building on a firm solid foundation of a better life for all. We presented to the nation our commitment to change the way government works in order to fast-track service delivery to its people. Hence we have declared 2010 as the year of action and a year of speeding up service delivery.

18 March 2010

State institutions being deployed to silence journalists?

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COSATU, the media and journalists

The Congress of South African Trade Unions has noted with serious concern the dispute between the ANC Youth League spokesman Floyd Shivambu and a group of prominent journalists.

16 March 2010

Critique of the Gotha Programme

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Critique of the Gotha Programme

Why does the Critique of the Gotha Programme come in here? What does it have to do with the NDR?

Because: The Gotha Programme was a Unity Programme. It was supposed to be the basis upon which the separate factions of the German Social Democrats were going to unite and go forward together.

15 March 2010

Roots of the NDR

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Roots of the NDR

With any course, one must decide where to begin. In the case of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), what is immediately crucial is an understanding of class struggle and of class alliances in history.

ANC NEC statement

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Statement of the ANC National Executive Committee

12-13 March 2010

The National Executive committee held its regular meeting in Esselperk, Ekurhuleni over two days, 12-13 March 2010. The focus of the meeting was on strengthening the organisation both in the party structures and in government. The Political overview of the President provided clear leadership and the NEC dedicated sufficient time discussing it and took the following decisions: -

14 March 2010

National Democratic Revolution

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National Democratic Revolution

“The South African Working Class and the National Democratic Revolution”, posted on 10 March 2010 on this list, was a fitting conclusion to our “Basics” course, and a good precursor to the next full course, which is devoted to the NDR, and starts now.

A full set of links to the eight “Generic Courses” can be seen here.

10 March 2010

SA Working Class and the NDR

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SA Working Class and the NDR

In this current part of our “Basics” course, we have looked at democracy, armed struggle, and popular unity-in-action, in terms of various countries of the world. The National Democratic Revolution is not a South African invention. It is a worldwide phenomenon, but it has also generated a specifically South African literature of the NDR.

The Armed People vs. The State

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The Armed People

A practical, actually-existing alternative to the State – The Commune - rose up in Paris in the beginning of 1871.

It was more than simply the right of recall and the whole people collectively in power in perpetual democratic session. It was also the reappearance of The Armed People in a new kind of societal framework.

08 March 2010

Political and Military Struggle

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Political and Military Struggle

Presuming that we have by now established that we are not pacifists, but are revolutionaries who intend, by all means necessary, to assist the working class to expropriate the expropriator bourgeois class; then why can we not move with speed, and without any restraint, towards an armed overthrow of the oppressors?

07 March 2010

National Democracy

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 National Democracy

In the last of the CU Basic Communism set we touch upon the single biggest historic task of the Communists in the period since the founding of the Communist International (a.k.a. Third International) in 1919: National Liberation (decolonisation).

04 March 2010

Class Society and the State

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Class Society and the State


This is the second supplementary text to accompany “The State”, by V I Lenin.

Lenin wrote "The State and Revolution" between the February 1917 bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia, and the October 1917 proletarian revolution. The October Revolution dramatically interrupted his writing, leaving the work unfinished. [Picture: Lenin in 1917]

COSATU CEC on Education

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1 – 3 March 2010 COSATU CEC press statement

[Extract]

Education

Education is the foundation on which all nations have liberated themselves, arguably more important than any other area of development.

Whilst we have made tremendous progress on many areas such as improving infrastructure, delivery of books, enrolment of children in particular the girl child, improving access by opening more no-fee schools, etc. we have not succeeded in transforming the education system in both quality and quantity.

Job creation before BBBEE - COSATU

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Cosatu says job creation must come before empowerment


Linda Ensor, Business Day, Johannesburg, 4 March 2010

CAPE TOWN — Broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) should be subordinated to the imperatives of a job-creating industrial policy, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said yesterday.

To this end, the BBBEE laws should be amended to prevent “import fronting”, whereby black-owned companies won government tenders but simply imported their inputs to the detriment of local companies and jobs. Cosatu said the fact that much of the procurement for the government’s 2010 infrastructure development programme had been imported was “scandalous”.

02 March 2010

Once more on the Origin of The Family, Private Property and The State

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Once more on the Origin of The Family, Private Property and The State

This post follows on from the one on Lenin’s lecture on “The State”. There are two CU supplementary texts to back up “The State” in this Basics course. One is “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”, which we dealt with in January, here.

01 March 2010

Quality Council for Trades and Occupations

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Training on right path with quality council


Blade Nzimande, Business Day, Johannesburg, 26 February 2010

IF SKILLS development and training hold the answers for so many of our social and economic problems, why don’t we just do it? The reason is poor-quality training can prove just as deadly as no training, and could be the difference between unemployment and decent work.