p Allow me to express our profound gratitude to the Commu nist Party of India (Marxist) for making it possible for the South African Communist Party to participate in this important seminar.

p Before I make my contribution to this seminar, may I take this opportunity to thank all the parties present here on behalf of the SACP and its allies, the ANC and COSATU for the messages of support and sympathy we received after the assassination of our General Secretary, Com Chris Hani. This killing unleashed a tidal wave of anger and grief never before seen in our country. Millions of people participated in the events surrounding his funeral, including two of the most successful stay-away’s seen in South Africa. For the party his assassination is a devastating blow. But as one of our peoples’ slogans go (this was after 1976) “don’t mourn -mobilise”.

p May I also on behalf of the ANC and its allies thank all of you for the messages of support and sympathy received by the ANC on the occasion of the death of Comrade Oliver Tambo, the National Chairperson of ANC

p Over the past two days, we have had various interesting contributions demonstrating the validity of Marxism-Leninism and its continuing importance in the struggle for socialism. I would like to associate the SACP with the fundamental ideas put forward so eloquently yesterday and today that Marxism-Leninism is a science, a guide to action, and a body of methodological principles which should assist us not only to interpret the world but to change it.

p The theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism cannot be treated as a closed book i.e. once we have defined a phenomenon in a 255 certain way we stick to it dogmatically. To cite one example, many parties including our own followed a simple definition of socialism basically arising from the experiences following the October Revolution of 1917 that socialism is characterised by the public ownership of the means of production. Without doubt this is an important characteristic But as the Vietnamese comrade pointed out, this simple definition led to policies which were voluntarist which led to wrong conclusions that under socialism you are rid of commodity production, the market mechanism and that basically only two forms of ownership exist- state owned and cooperatives.

p In this context, Marxism-Leninism must remain a creative ever developing science of theory and practice. On the other hand we are not pragmatists in the philosophical as well as practical political sense i.e. we merely decide what is good now and what is bad then and selectively choose from the vast body of knowledge that which would support a specific point of view. In our own work, we are guided by two fundamental approaches: (a) does our understanding and actions enhance the positions of the working class and its allies; and (b) does it take us one or more steps further along the zigzag path of achieving our stated objectives. It is ofcourse a truism that as long as there are classes there will be class struggle. We communists did not invent the class struggle, but we do try to give it a direction and a political content.

p In his very interesting and thought provoking paper, Comrade Surjeet asked us to examine the correlation of forces nationally and internationally. This is a critical starting point. Now many of us in this room, and our Party was one of them, used to assert with authority that the world balance of forces at the time when the Soviet Union was strong, was in favour of the forces of peace, democracy, socialism and social progress. I believe, it was then a correct characterisation. But if so, the collapse of the Soviet Union and socialist societies in Eastern Europe has fundamentally altered the world balance of forces in favour of imperialism and its myriad agendes. Thus the need for the closest cooperation of the progressive and anti-imperialist forces is of great significance. By working together we can and we must resist the blandishments and intimidations of the major imperialist powers and their agencies.

p Looking at this specific area, I would like to stress that whilst it is true mat capitalism has scored some remarkable successes in a number of countries it has failed as a world system. And It would 256 seem to me that if we are to judge whether or not a system is successful one of the characteristics will have to be whether it has succeeded as a world system. As a world system, capitalism has, as the comrade from the Communist Party of Britain pointed out, basically delivered nothing but misery to more than 500 million people around the globe.

p Naturally as communists, we are preoccupied by the theory and practice of transition from capitalism to socialism, but I would like to say a few words about another transition process i.e from socialism to capitalism. And it seems to me that within the communist movement, within the broad anti-imperialist movement there is an absolute need for a thoroughgoing analysis of this process. I do not think it is sufficient to merely characterise it as a counterrevolutionary process. There are some fundamental lessons we need to learn. Of course our ideological and class opponents never cease to tell us that our policies for transition from capitalism to socialism would lead to a catastrophic flight of capital, drop in output, drop in GDP and the consequent lowering of the living standards of the people. Yet when it comes to the other transition they seem to be remarkably silent There has been a catastrophic decline in some of the most important economic indicators as well as a growth in others such as unemployment, homelessness and even poverty. In that sense, this process of transition from socialism to capitalism is certainly not irreversible. It is interesting that the bourgeois ideologues may well be making the same mistakes that we communists made earlier - That the transition process of building of socialism was irreversible. But this is of course not to underestimate the very difficult situation facing the fraternal parties in those countries that were formerly socialist.

p Nevertheless, even at this stage it is necessary to pose the question: what is the price that the Russian Federation has to pay for this transition. Surely one seems to be, at this moment of time, the loss of political and economic independence. The paper money promised to Yeltsin by the USA and G-7 countries will only be made available if the present regime succumbs to the demands of these countries. The other side of the coin is that it may possibly lead to an authoritarian regime in which the process of democratisationof society will be pushed into the background. The SACP like other fraternal parties is also engaging in a debate and analysis of a number of critical issues facing the communist movement. One of 257 these is the national and ethnic questions. Right-wing forces are using narrow nationalism, chauvinism and racism to divide the working class at the national level and international levels.

p Another question is the composition and character of the working class. The question of the changing composition of the working class is not only important for the developed capitalist countries in the wake of the scientific and technological revolution but it seems to me, to all of us. To what extent we require a differentiated approach to the question of the composition of working class, the question of those who are employed and those who are unemployed; to what extent we may need to have a differentiated approach, to categories such as youth and women.

p At the end of this month we are holding a strategic conference to examine amongst others issues such as: (a) what kind of parties do we want to build in South Africa; (b) the relationship between a planned economy, the market and democracy; (c) the power of the big monopolies and how to break this, including looking at various ways to bring about the central role of the working class at all levels of decision making d) how to initiate a policy of reconstruction and development which is linked to the struggle to consummate the national democratic revolution, and internationalism in the present world situation. Let me very .brieflyjtQuch. op. these points.

p What type of party do we want to build? The core of the debate at least for us is the relationship between a mass party and a party of quality. For example, following the assassination of Chris Hani should we go on the offensive and recruit members in their thousands if possible ? On the other hand, should we seek to consolidate our present membership which stands at 50,000, or do we seek to do both? Now the simple answer for this is always to say, do both. But it is much more complicated when we actually try tp put |K^t in practice. At least speaking for our own Party we face serious problems of servicing our present membership arid otirjSresent structures. We face a serious problem in carrying buf a cbiiSiswht and sustained campaign of political education. TpVus’tfiSWfiSsuBn of raising the level of political consciousness anc| wd^standinr6f our own membership isapriority area. Because v/e feefffiaiW|&?a specific contribution that we can ihake wftfcti wic both on the national liberation and the trade union movement.

p We are also of the opinion that being a Communist Party does 258 not automatically give us a monopoly of ideas both in the realm of theory as well as political practice. That we need to find the ways and means in which we can interact with other left forces in order to achieve the aims of bringing about a socialist society in South Africa.

p At the same time these discussions would also examine how we can strengthen our alliance with the ANC and the Congress of South African Trade Unions to ensure a fundamental restructuring of the socio-economic life of our country.

p On the relationship between the planned economy and the market and democracy: This is an area which concerns all of us as individual parties as well as a collective. Like other parties, we are constantly under attack that these three elements are so contradictory that they are not possible to achieve. We are of the view that not only is it theoretically feasible but without a combination of all three factors socialism cannot have an unshakable condition. And I was particularly interested in the input by our comrade from Portugal and I want to quote what he said, because I think it has a very important approach for us. He said that socialism and democracy (economic, social, political and cultural) are inseparable and "that the new society can only be built by the revolutionary action and engagement of the workers and popular masses, never without their engagement and much less against their will”.

p Proceeding from our own experiences, and really speaking only about South Africa, we are convinced that in our own country, multi-party democracy is central to the different stages of our struggle even in the future. And we would insist, at least speaking about South Africa itself that multi-party democracy is good enough for us now and certainly will have to be good enough for us when we reach the phase of the construction of a socialist society.

p South Africa has one of the highest concentration and centralisation of capital in any comparable capitalist country. Four large corporations control almost 70 percent of the shares in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. They also control large tracts of land and the commercial property in every major city. To achieve economic democracy requires therefore the weakening and then breaking up of this huge conglomerates. Again like so many other fraternal parties, we are grappling with the question of how to bring this about. In this context we also proceed from the notion, and I want 259 to emphasise that we are speaking only for ourselves, that the trade union movement must in its organisational, structural and decision making processes be independent of all political parties. Let me give an example. If you take COS ATU, the biggest trade union federation in South Africa, many of its leaders are leaders and members of our Party. But COSATU and ourselves would regard it as intolerable if the Communist Party was to intervene in any of the decision making processes of the trade union movement.

p On the issue of reconstruction and development: As you may know the ANC and its allies have proposed a two phased approach to bringing about change in our country. We are proposing that i 5 soon as elections are held for a Constituent Assembly (whose main task is to draft a new constitution), an interim government should be formed. This government would be based on the percentage of votes won by the parties who would be contesting the elections. Now any party winning the minimum of 5 percent of the votes would be entitled to a seat in the Cabinet. Once the new constitution has been adopted we propose that the interim government be transformed into a government of national unity, reconstruction and development. This certainly has elements of power-sharing since the majority party would have voluntarily agreed to include other parties in the cabinet. But it is clear that even this affects only one aspect of the state structures. There are other vital component parts such as the police, defence, intelligence services and the civil service which will have to be radically transformed. Thus these areas of the state structures will form part of our strategy of reconstruction and development. May I just add in passing that in our view those elements that were responsible for the assassination of Chris Hani are to be found within those state structures, certainly within elements of the military intelligence and some of the other security forces. At the level of socio-economic policy it is commonly agreed between the ANC, the Party and COSATU that a policy of reconstruction and development would have to form the core of Jthe ANC’s election programme. But in our view we need to embark on this road as soon as we have an interim government We would expect an ANC dominated interim government to immediately initiate a massive house building programme, a public wpjks programme, electrification - it is interesting that the So,uth African government always boasts that atleast 40 percent of all electricity utilised in the entire African continent is used in South Africa, — yet 260 85% of the African population is deprived of access to electricity, access to health care and services and a drastic overhaul of the education system. In this context a job creation programme, given that at least 50% of the African population is unemployed, is for us critical. At the same time the government would need to pursue policies which would encourage the growth of small and medium size businesses especially for the African population. Here of course, like everywhere else the new government would be under considerable pressure to liberalise trade patterns and to open South Africa to imports. The process of the national democratic revolution has to be pursued to create the basis on which we could seek to build a socialist society.

p Lastly, let me say a few words on internationalism. One fully agrees with all other comrades who said that there is a crying need to improve both bilateral and multilateral relations. We think one of the important aspect of this is for example the Sao Paulo forum which had been initiated some years ago and which will have its conference in Cuba in July. Hopefully at this seminar we may usefully explore in our discussion how, if it is possible, to build a powerful anti-imperialist front. Then how do we support those countries, parties and peoples who are under intense pressure from imperialism, in this case specifically as has been mentioned - the existing socialist countries. Ho w do we continue to exchange views and experiences on major theoretical issues confronting us? Of course, obviously with the collapse of the Soviet Union, at least those parties who had closer relations with the Soviet, they had certain advantages in that the socialist countries actually paid for most of these conferences that were held. But there were also disadvantages, I think in the sense that, in my view, we were not openly honest with each other about our differences of opinion and even of our criticisms of what was happening in those countries.

It seems it might be useful here to exchange views and experienceson how we can be constructively critical of each other without seeming to interfere in the internal affairs of other parties. It seems to be important, if it is all possible, to try to share experiences on a number of questions such as the the fact that there are a number of communist parties including the CPI(M) which has accumulated some experience in terms of holding and exercising power on a regional basis - how and in what way does the power exerdsed, limited as it is, has its impact on the national political scene? It 261 would be interesting, I think, for us to examine developments in Guyana, where the PPP has won power through the ballot box It would be interesting to see to what extent a small country is able to carry out progressive socio-economic policies. It would seem to me that it would be useful if over the next few hours left to us we are able to try to share some experiences on this question and on the question of how we take our own collective work together, a step forward.