DIE SKRIF IS LETTERLIK AAN DIE MUUR

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The National Democratic Revolution (NDR):
Its Origins and Implications
Address by Dr Anthea Jeffery,
South African Institute of Race Relations,
Conference on ‘the national democratic revolution,
land ownership, and
the Green Paper on land reform’,
Stone Cradle, Pretoria
31st May 2012
Introduction
In the post-apartheid period, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has persisted in its
determination to implement a National Democratic Revolution (NDR). The ANC makes no
secret of this, regularly re-affirming this objective both at its five-yearly national conferences and
in various other spheres. Its commitment to continuing revolution has enormous ramifications for
the country and has already cost South Africa dearly in various spheres. Yet neither the goals of
the NDR nor the thinking which underpins it has ever been given much attention by the Media.
The topic seems to be off-limits to the Press, which earlier generally ignored the first stage of the
revolution – the people’s war strategy which gave the ANC its domination over the new South
Africa – and now largely overlooks the NDR and its ramifications.
Milestones in the development of the National Democratic Revolution
The ANC’s NDR has its roots in Lenin’s theory of imperialism, as articulated in 1917.
According to Lenin, the living standards of the working classes in industrialised Europe were then
improving rather than deteriorating (contrary to what Marx had predicted) solely because the
imperial powers were able ruthlessly to exploit the brown and black masses in their colonies.
However, this theory was difficult to apply in South Africa, which had gained independence
from Britain as early as 1910. But in 1950 the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) found a
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way around this obstacle by stating that South Africa had ‘the characteristics of both an imperialist
state and a colony within a single, indivisible, geographical, political, and economic entity’. In this
‘colonialism of a special type’, white South Africa was effectively an ‘imperialist state’ and black
South Africa was its ‘colony’. This meant that the wealth of white South Africans had nothing to
do with enterprise, skill, or technological advantage but derived solely from the exploitation and
impoverishment of black South Africans. This idea, though developed more than 60 years ago,
remains central to the NDR today.
This theory was further endorsed by the South African Communist Party (SACP) in its 1962
programme, Road to South African Freedom. Here, the SACP urged a ‘national democratic
revolution to destroy white domination’. The ANC, it said, must overthrow the ‘colonial state of
white supremacy’, ‘democratise’ the new state by ‘making it fully representative of the
population of South Africa’, use the new state to suppress the former ruling classes and
transform society, and then defend the gains of the revolution through a ‘vigorous and vigilant
dictatorship…by the people against the former dominating and exploiting classes’ and any
attempt to ‘restore white colonialism’;
At the Morogoro Conference in 1969, the ANC endorsed this perspective and committed itself to
a national democratic revolution (NDR) to correct ‘historical injustices’ by destroying existing
economic and social relationships. This would give rise to a new society based on the core
provisions of the Freedom Charter: a document adopted in 1955 with significant communist
input.
ANC commitment to the NDR
At its national conferences at Mafikeng (in 1997), Stellenbosch (in 2002), and Polokwane (in
2007), the ANC repeatedly recommitted itself to the NDR via the Strategy and Tactics document
it has adopted at each of these gatherings.
The Mafikeng document identified the key goal of the NDR as being ‘to liberate Africans in
particular and black people in general from political and economic bondage’ by transforming the
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machinery of state, using a cadre policy to give the ANC control over ‘all centres of power’,
‘redistributing wealth and income’, and ‘de-racialising South African society’ through ‘a
consistent programme of affirmative action’.
The Stellenbosch document mainly reaffirmed the 1997 one but included a short Preface which
stressed the need to ‘eliminate apartheid property relations’ through ‘the deracialisation
of…wealth, including land’ and the ‘redistribution of wealth and income’. This would involve a
‘continuing struggle’ which would intensify over time. ‘Because property relations are at the
core of all social systems’, the tensions arising from redistribution would have to be managed via
‘dexterity in tact and firmness in principle’.
The Polokwane document (the current one) reaffirmed the need for affirmative action until such
time ‘as all centres of power and influence become broadly representative of the country’s
demographics’. It called for the ‘de-racialisation’ of wealth (including land), along with
management and the professions. It also urged a strong state able to ‘direct national
development’ and stressed the importance of cadre deployment to all centres of power.
A discussion document, prepared for the national general council of the ANC in September 2010
said the global financial crisis had demonstrated ‘the bankruptcy of neo-liberalism’ and opened
up space for ‘progressive alternatives’. The discussion document identified the Freedom Charter
as the ANC’s ‘lodestar’, and said the major current task of the NDR was to ‘build a national
democratic society’ which would address the historical injustice via the redistribution of land and
other resources, affirmative action, and ‘the eradication of apartheid production relations’.
In 2012 the ANC has released a new discussion document on ‘The Second Transition: Building a
National Democratic Society and the Balance of Forces in 2012’. This has been prepared for the
ANC’s policy conference in June and its national conference at Mangaung in December this
year. Though it repeats many of the same themes, it puts particular emphasis on the need for
‘freedom from socio-economic bondage’. This, it says, requires ‘a second transition’ that moves
beyond democratisation (the focus of the first transition) to ‘the social and economic
transformation of South Africa over the next 30 to 50 years’.
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This second transition must achieve ‘real and visible progress in reducing wealth and income
inequalities and in changing racial…patterns of wealth and income’. An earlier leaked draft
spoke of the need to change the Constitution to make this possible. The final document is more
carefully worded, but nevertheless says the current ‘framework’ (a code word for the
Constitution?) ‘has proved inadequate and even inappropriate for a second social and economic
transformation phase’. The implication is that this framework will thus have to be changed. In
addition, the document suggests that the ANC is no longer willing to stick to an earlier ‘implicit
bargain’, in which the organisation ‘committed to macroeconomic stability and international
openness’, while ‘white business agreed to participate in capital reform to modify the racial
structures of asset ownership and invest in national priorities’. Since this approach has not
succeeded in solving poverty, unemployment and inequality, many more interventions are now
needed.
The Strategy and Tactics documents, along with the 2010 and 2012 discussion documents
outlined above, are public documents which are carefully phrased and often express worthy aims
(to heighten state efficiency, increase economic growth, expand infrastructure, and improve
education). However, they also make it clear that the ANC’s key objective is not to reduce
inequality by growing the economic pie but rather by taking existing wealth from whites and
transferring it to blacks. Though progress in the redistribution of wealth has thus far been slow,
the ANC expects its pace to quicken as the balance of forces shifts further in favour of this.
According to the SACP and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the NDR
provides the foundation for shift to a socialist and then communist society. The ANC does not
overtly espouse these goals. Instead, it stresses that the NDR is necessary to liberate blacks from
‘political and economic bondage’ (ie from the exploitation implicit in colonialism of a special
type), for only then will South Africa become a full democracy.
Some consequences of the NDR to date
In the political sphere:
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First, from 1984 to 1994, the people’s war strategy was used to give the ANC the degree of
domination needed to drive the NDR forward in the post-apartheid era. This required, in
particular, the weakening or elimination of black opposition – and the people’s war was
singularly successful in achieving this.
Second, the ANC sees itself not as an ordinary political party bound by the ordinary rules of the
political game but as a national liberation movement responsible for implementing the NDR and
thus as uniquely entitled to rule. This makes it contemptuous of Parliament, opposition parties, a
free press, an autonomous SABC, independent civil society, and adverse electoral outcomes, as
in the Western Cape. Hence, contrary to what many journalists have said, there is nothing
‘baffling’ about its recent initiatives to clamp down on the Press or weaken the Democratic
Alliance in a variety of ways.
Third, the ANC does not regard itself as bound by the Constitution. It sees this not as a solemn
pact but simply as a tactical compromise which can readily be changed as the balance of power
shifts in the ANC’s favour. This stance has long been hinted at by ANC leaders, but is now
being more openly expressed. Thus far, despite its attitude towards the Constitution, the ANC
has nevertheless generally avoided overt damaging amendments to the text, such as those on
floor crossing. Instead, various constitutional provisions have been simply, in practice, been
disregarded. These include Parliament’s duty to hold the executive to account, the need for a new
electoral system after 1999, and the prohibition of cadre deployment. The NDR also means, of
course, the ANC has no principled commitment to key constitutional safeguards, including press
freedom, property rights, and an independent Judiciary.
Fourth, cadre deployment has been used to give the ANC control over all the ‘levers of state
power’, including parastatals and the public broadcaster. The aim is to use cadre deployment to
extend ANC control to the Judiciary, the Press, business, universities, and influential
organisations in civil society.
In the economic sphere:
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First, the ANC has repeatedly emphasised the need for demographic representivity in
employment in both the public and the private sectors. This has also been made an overt demand
of both the Employment Equity Act and some elements in the black economic empowerment
(BEE) codes.
Second, the goal of demographic representivity in all spheres means that targets for redistribution
that fall short of this are likely to be increased in due course. Thus, for example, in revising the
Mining Charter in 2010, the minister – along with many journalists – implied it was a big
‘concession’ that the ownership target was being kept at 26% by 2014; and this target may well
be raised in time.
Third, part of the ANC’s aim has been to increase the power of the black working class, which
the organisation sees as the main driver of the NDR. The ANC includes within this class both
those who have jobs and those who do not, and may of course regard the unemployed as
particularly important in driving the revolution forward. This explains policies such as the
Labour Relations Act of 1995, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act of 1997, and the labour
bills now in the pipeline, all of which build union power while helping to price the unskilled and
inexperienced out of the job market. They also thus play an important part in generating the
‘ticking time bomb’ of massive youth unemployment.
Fourth, implementation of the NDR requires a strong ‘developmental’ state and provides a
continual impetus towards ever more state intervention.
In the social sphere:
First, the NDR promotes an increasing dependence on the Government. The aim is seemingly not
to encourage self-reliance and economic independence but rather to ensure that people rely on
the State for money, goods, and services given to them via social grants, free housing, free basic
electricity and water, free education, free health care for many, and subsidised transport.
Second, key additional aims (at least for Cosatu and the SACP) are to ‘roll back’ market
provision in areas such as health and education. In the context of National Health Insurance
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proposals, for instance, Cosatu would like to ‘get rid’ of private health care and bring all health
care services under state control, which will further reinforce dependency on the Government.
Third, similar thinking seems to underpin current thinking on land reform and rural development.
As the Land Tenure Security Bill of 2010 shows – and the green paper on land reform
demonstrates even further – the aim is no longer to build up a new generation of independent
black farmers owning their own land. Instead, land reform beneficiaries are to be confined to
leasehold ownership, while communal land tenure in former homeland areas will be retained. In
addition, those who move to the proposed new agri-villages will have nothing but temporary
permits to live and farm in these settlements and will be subject to eviction by state officials if
they don’t farm well enough. Far from extending land ownership to many more black South
Africans, the 2010 bill and the green paper will bring about incremental land nationalisation.
There will be no big-bang approach, but the Government will gradually assume ownership of
ever more land while more and more South Africans find themselves without individual
ownership and dependent on the State’s permission for their occupation of the land on which
they live or work.
Important countervailing factors
From within the ANC
First, the ANC recognises that the ‘balance of forces’ must be correct before progress can be
made with the NDR. As with other revolutionary movements, it accepts that it may be necessary
to take one step back though its ultimate aim is then to take two steps forward.
Second, the ANC understands that the collapse of the Soviet Union brought about a fundamental
shift in the global environment. This has inhibited the rapid post-apartheid implementation of the
NDR which it had earlier anticipated. It continually monitors the global environment and has
drawn comfort from the global economic crisis which began in 2008 and the way in which this
has helped to discredit free markets. The ANC nevertheless feels the pressures arising from
globalisation. These include the importance of export markets, the need for more international
competitiveness, and the need to attract foreign investment.
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Third, the Government has long been anxious to retain ‘sovereignty’ over South Africa. This was
a key reason for the ANC’s adoption of Gear, which it saw as essential to bring down the budget
deficit and avoid a debt trap which could have led to structural adjustment programmes under the
IMF or World Bank.
Fourth, as the ANC recognised at Polokwane, affirmative action and BEE have ‘opened up
enticing opportunities’ for its cadres, including ‘unprecedented opportunities for individual
material gain’. This has led to corruption and bureaucratic indifference. Cosatu and the SACP
are more blunt, saying it has led to a crass materialism which threatens to derail the NDR.
The ANC’s discussion documents in 2010 and 2012 also recognise that its cadres are
increasingly involved in factional strife, that state resources are being used to fight internal
battles within the organisation, and that the votes of ANC members are being ‘bought’ to
influence electoral outcomes. This is all part of the ‘challenge of incumbency’, it says. It is thus
(once again) seeking to develop ‘new’ cadres with strong self-discipline and revolutionary
morality, but these attempts are no more likely to succeed than earlier efforts have done.
Constraints outside the ANC:
First, key constraints are to be found in South Africa’s long tradition of critical vigilance,
coupled with its still strong Judiciary, its powerful independent Press, its vibrant official
opposition, and its diverse and often outspoken civil society;
Second, South Africa also has a well-established market system and a strong private sector with
top quality companies and high-level skills. Moreover, the ANC understands the importance of
business in generating tax revenues and generally seeks to keep it on side;
Third, South Africa has an independent central bank and a pragmatic National Treasury, at least
at senior levels.
Conclusion
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The ANC’s commitment to the NDR means that the emphasis since 1994 has not been on
stimulating growth but rather on bringing about the redistribution of existing wealth from whites
to blacks. This is particularly evident in BEE rules, in mining and water laws, in land reform
policies, and in recurrent calls for nationalisation (which could be used to prepare the way for
confiscatory taxes or other interventions, as in the mining sector). Full implementation of the
NDR will deter investment, limit growth, worsen poverty, and increase dependency on the State.
It will undermine the Constitution, give the ANC totalitarian control, and betray the bright hopes
of the 1994 transition. Fortunately, there are many countervailing factors that militate against the
success of the NDR. However, there is also no room for complacency. Instead, it is vital to alert
South Africans to the threats implicit in the NDR and to do very much more to expose its false
premises and damaging outcomes.
Key sources in chronological order:
Strategy and Tactics of the ANC, National Conference, Morogoro, 1969
Strategy and Tactics of the ANC, National Conference, Mafikeng, 1997
Strategy and Tactics of the ANC, (Preface), National Conference, Stellenbosch, 2002
Strategy and Tactics of the ANC, National Conference, Polokwane, 2007
Building a National Democratic Society: Strategy and Tactics and the balance of forces in 2010
(Discussion document prepared for the National General Council, September 20-24 2010)
Economic Transformation Discussion Document for the 2010 National General Council
Leadership Renewal, Discipline and Organisational Culture, discussion document for the 2010
National General Council
The Second Transition: Building a national democratic society and the balance of forces in 2012,
discussion document for the ANC policy conference in June 2012