The ANC “Loses Its Soul”

The 1994 election of the ANC ended racial apartheid, so how is it that workers still face “economic apartheid?”  The truth is that the founding ANC document, the Freedom Charter, contained many contradictions. Two ideologies  competed in the Charter: The first view, expressed by Nelson Mandela in 1956, envisioned the emergence of a ‘non-white  bourgeoisie', following the dismantling of the white monopoly over productive resources. The other view, put forth by Oliver Tambo in 1983, envisioned  an end to the ‘exploitative system on which apartheid is based’” (Khan, Review of African Political Economy, 2013). Tambo’s view aimed at ending capitalist exploitation, but Mandela’s simply sought to dismantle white monopoly ended up as ANC policy.

What ultimately happened to the struggle against racial apartheid? With Mandela’s rise to power, those who favored radical change were defeated by the liberal-capitalist, Black nationalist elements. Ronnie Kasrils, a South African Communist Party (SACP) and ANC leader, recalls:

 “From 1991 to 1996 the battle for the ANC’s soul got underway, and was eventually lost to corporate power: we were entrapped by the neoliberal economy – or, as some today cry out, ‘we sold our people down the river’” (Guardian, 6/24/2013). South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa, once a leader of mineworkers union transformed himself into a rich capitalist while leading the ANC. Workers led by NUMSA, however, have broken with the failed ANC and its allies, and even attempted to form a new communist party.

Nevertheless, the SACP followed a revisionist line, so they too fell in line with capitalism. They fought for national not class liberation, abandoned fighting for communist revolution in favor of a socialist one, and called for forming a united front with liberal and nationalist capitalists.The result is that the new Black elites hailed by the ANC and SACP perpetuate “the super-exploitation and brutalization of Black workers at rates far exceeding apartheid ” (Khan, 2013). Thus post apartheid South Africa is a textbook example of the failures of nationalism.