The previous part of this series argued that the depoliticised nature of the GNU does not mean that those committed to a resurgence of democracy should stand by as passive observers. The very documents of the GNU can be given an emancipatory meaning and advance the struggle to recover democratic life.

Now, who should we expect to take this up? In the history of South Africa mainly or only the ANC, the PAC, the Communist Party, Cosatu and the black consciousness movement (BCM) would have tried, but only few had a capacity to conduct sustained mass activities in order to achieve political goals.

For some decades, the PAC has not been a mass force and the Communist Party has limited its mass activities in the period since the rise of Jacob Zuma and been a shadow of its former self.

But even that earlier mass quality of the ANC and its allies enjoyed mixed support within the leadership of the organisation after unbanning in 1990.

There were some people who were recognised as attached to that feature of the ANC and SACP in the late 1980s and early 1990s - obviously Chris Hani - and Walter Sisulu and other top leaders had been photographed at such demonstrations, but others held back.

Thus, within the leadership of the ANC as far back as the 1990s there was not an unqualified support for mass activities, for what can be called the popular.

That lack of support has increased in recent years, with the ANC being heavily compromised in the State Capture period, and indeed in the whole of the Jacob Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa “wasted years”. Mass activities - these days - are mainly for others, not the ANC and indeed mass activities were organised against the then ANC leadership for state capture and other forms of corruption and stealing.

For mass activities, or popular activities to take place, there need to be ideas around which people are mobilised and organised. That is the case with Abahlali baseMjondolo, where there's quite a lot of writing and debating, which precedes whatever they do in the way of mass or other activities. But in the case of the ANC, there's been little of that for most of its period in government.

For the inauguration of popular activities, there need to be some statements that provide the rationale for what is being done. Why under a democratically elected government, should there be mass activities? Some people, even supporters of popular activities, do not believe there should be actions against what is seen as their own government or that there should not be demonstrations and the concerns that motivate them should be left to elected officials.

No mass activity has been initiated in recent years, and there has, in fact, been very little discussion of the mass factor in the ANC and its allies, although Cosatu has occasionally come out on strikes over wages and other labour issues. But for political activities, there has been very little debate as to why there is so little engagement or as to why it is not done at all.

Nowadays the words mobilise and organise tend to be used interchangeably, but in the UDF period we knew the difference - that one had to be organised in order to mobilise people on a continual basis, not simply for one dramatic march. A movement had to be organised at various levels to be able to draw people into activities on a regular basis and be trained or train others to listen to grievances and prepare people to take these up.

‘Left-wing communism - an infantile disorder’

The SACP and Cosatu have both criticised the Government of National Unity, sometimes arguing that it would have been better had the ANC formed an alliance with the EFF and the MK party.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV4irdsRoZc and https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/political-parties/watch-national-day-of-action-is-the-first-salvo-against-the-gnu-says-cosatu-20241008 and https://www.news24.com/citypress/politics/anc-getting-in-bed-with-enemies-puzzles-sacp-yet-they-wont-leave-alliance-20240804 and https://www.ewn.co.za/2024/08/04/sacp-hits-out-at-anc-for-embracing-white-monopoly-capital-in-gnu and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FavYWgbVK7I

There have also been other criticisms from left activists, which have argued that the GNU is on a road to neoliberalism, including these pieces by Mazibuko Jara and Gunnette Kaaf.

My understanding is that when one is confronted by a choice in politics, when one is confronted by a decision whether or not to associate with a particular activity, whether it is to vote in political elections or to join a political organisation, one does not have a simple either/or argument, and one does not necessarily shy away from association with an organisation or an institution which has reactionary characteristics.

Whether or not one associates with such an organisation or institution depends on whether or not such engagement will further the cause that one advances. In the case of the left, that was understood very well by Lenin, and led to him writing a booklet called Left-Wing Communism - An Infantile Disorder, criticising those who shied away from participation in “bourgeois” parliaments.

It also guided Lenin when Trotsky opposed the signing of the Brest Litovsk Treaty, which relieved the newly born October Revolution from fighting on one of the fronts from which it was attacked by Germany, in exchange for territory that belonged to Russia. Lenin was willing to lose territory in order to save the revolution.

Now the latter-day communists have not learned the flexibility of Lenin, the willingness to compromise, the willingness to zigzag on the road to the goal that one wants to achieve. One cannot make a revolution or achieve radical transformation by following a straight line. One must sometimes swerve. One may have to go in one direction or another and then change.

Now that does not seem to have been learnt by the South African Communist Party of today and these other people on the left. One gives something a label like “neoliberal”, and that means one has nothing to do with it.

One gives other people a label, or one takes the label that these other people give themselves - like the EFF, defining themselves as revolutionaries when they do not live or act like revolutionaries. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

What needs to be learnt in politics is to make one’s own decisions on the character of a phenomenon, irrespective of the definition that that organisational phenomenon or institution gives to itself.

Even if I characterise the GNU as depoliticised, as I have done for now, that doesn't mean that I should have nothing to do with it. What is argued is that for revolutionaries, for those pursuing an emancipatory path, if there are openings in a depoliticised or fairly conservative organisation, it is the job of those who are revolutionaries or believe in emancipatory outcomes to find ways of taking and not abandoning those openings, making them into spaces of transformation and liberation.

Within a depoliticised GNU there remain possibilities for popular forces to advance liberatory change

There is a desperate need to revive an understanding of how one invokes strategies and tactics in order to achieve radical emancipatory/revolutionary goals.

One does not simply “walk away” because the institution is headed by forces hostile to such change. One enters and engages on the basis of the values that will lead to addressing the hardships of the poor. And there is space for that, as indicated in the interpretation of GNU documentation above.

Let’s hope we see fewer slogans and “revolutionary rhetoric” and more careful planning and organisation in the spaces that are open!

Raymond Suttner is an Emeritus Professor at the University of South Africa and a Research Associate in the English Department at University of the Witwatersrand. He served lengthy periods as a political prisoner. His writings cover contemporary politics, history, and social questions. His X (twitter) handle is @raymondsuttner.