ILTT REPORT ON SOUTH AFRICA: CHINA, ECONOMY, LABOUR MOVEMENT AND RESISTANCE
On 18 October the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU,) in alliance with other organisations held a protest against the proposed structural adjustments at Eskom, the state energy company, proposing instead to reclaim and build a green new Eskom. This follows the unprecedented electricity blackouts and power cuts that have become the norm in South Africa resulting in a number of protests and anger directed towards Eskom and the government. The power outages that are being caused by failure to plan for alternative sustainable energy sources are but a reflection of the general crisis of the South African economy as a result of unplanned and wasteful capitalist motivations seeking profit at the expense of the livelihoods of the majority and the planet. One major coal plant’s lifespan has come to an end with nine others expected to do so by 2035 at a cost of 55,000 jobs. To resolve the energy crisis an estimated 1.2 Trillion Rands ($70.6 BnUS) is required, according to liberal bourgeois planners. China appears to be the most favoured candidate to bail out the state owned enterprise having made several large loans including one from the China Development Bank for R33 B in 2018. We argue that the Eskom crisis is a natural product of a system that is motivated by profit at the expense of human need and nature evident clearly in a large semi-colony facing capitalism’s terminal crisis. Only a socialist revolution smashing capitalism and imperialism can save humanity and the earth.
South Africa is currently experiencing what mainstream liberal sources are calling a technical recession caused mainly by the incessant power cuts and the Ukraine war on the basis of the global economic crisis that started around the 2008 recession and slowdown and compounded by the Covid 19 crisis. The national crisis is characterised by high unemployment, extreme poverty, social inequality and limited access to social services by the majority who are the working and poor masses as well as lack of skilled workers and significant drop in private investment. In the second quarter of 2022 Gross Domestic Product, GDP, shrunk by 0.7% whilst the October consumer price inflation was 7.6% according to Statistics South Africa, the country’s official statistics body. Also according to the same source, seven industries contracted with the biggest contractions being in the key agriculture, manufacturing and mining sectors.
We assert that the bourgeois analysis of the crisis in South Africa fails to take into account its main cause – the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. A ‘technical recession’ is defined as no growth in output over a given period. What this really means is that the production of value is stagnating in the country. The ability of imperialism to extract value and super profits cannot avoid stagflation as new investment is not made unless profits are guaranteed. When no growth combines with rising prices stagflation results, with the accompanying stagnation of jobs, wages, and livelihoods. That is why in Africa the national bourgeoisies are driven into the arms of China to make ‘win-win’ state-to-state deals, investing in infrastructure and production of energy and minerals to restore the conditions for making profits. China claims that ‘win-win’ deals benefit both economic partners, so that it is not a colonial power. This is only true insofar as its national comprador regime partners are the ones who ‘win’ as they, and not the working people, profit from their share of the value produced. China also hides behind its history of ‘friendly’ relations with SA going back to the days of Maoism.
The role of China in the political and economic affairs of South Africa started during the apartheid days when China, through the Stalinist South African Communist Party(SACP), which captured a significant layer of the African National Congress(ANC) leadership. China propped them up organisationally and financially especially against their Pan-Africanist adversaries in the party and alliance. In 1994, when nominal majority rule was ushered in, the Stalinist capitalist-restorationist Communist Party of China (CPC) had already gained a foothold in the Alliance of ANC, SACP and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). This was further buttressed by the growing economic might of China as it emerged as an imperialist power escaping dependency on western, becoming a major creditor, trading partner and FDI source, after the restoration of capitalism.
Based on China’s 1953-1976 insulation from the law of value because of the central plan and the monopoly of foreign trade with the global markets, the slow road to capitalist restoration made use of the legacy institutions of the Degenerated/Deformed Workers States (DWS) to ward off subordination as a semi-colony of the west like the smaller former DWSs. Using those legacy institutions, state monopoly finance capital is used to exploit labour at home and abroad as in its role at Eskom. Today China is a fully fledged imperialist power fulfilling criteria identified by Lenin in Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism. China is South Africa’s biggest trading partner and investor country over the last ten years .
China has an inherent and logical interest in controlling the labour movement to ensure unfettered imperialist exploitation of resources. It is not enough to control a section of the ruling elite. It is imperative that workers are kept in tow in order to maximise on profits through paying slave wages and bad working conditions. IOL reports, “China was the largest investor in Africa during the five-year period by jobs and capital….” A compliant labour force is a must for any imperialist power, especially a new one seeking to displace or compete with the historically entrenched western imperialist powers.
The traditional tool for labour pacification has been the COSATU bureaucracy until it compromised itself starting around 2007 to 2010. When key private sector strikes took place the COSATU and affiliate union bureaucrats did everything to try and stifle the development of the strikes towards a prolonged and general strike that could shake the capitalist class. This ruptured their iron grip over the militant workers seeking to resolve the crisis for their class. Marikana put the last nail on the coffin of COSATU as a historically militant federation and bulwark and vanguard of the working class. Today with a third of the working class unemployed, Ramaphosa, COSATU leaders and business owners unite to drive down wages under the cynical campaign the “Framework for a Social Compact”.
The National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA) “moment” that resulted in the formation of SAFTU and the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP) offered hope to a host of many well-meaning activists, workers and organisations. But alas, the hope was to be short lived. The leading members in NUMSA did not abandon their Stalinist (ML) political baggage,bureaucratism and opportunism. What resulted was the same political culture and traditions albeit a different name. China made sure that the new formations would stick to the Stalinist [Now Xi thought] doctrine despite radical and sometimes contradictory rhetoric. Through their middle man, one Roy Singham, they are busy channeling lots of money to control NUMSA, SAFTU and SRWP in order to protect their imperialist interests. Events surrounding the recent NUMSA congress reveal the bureaucratic and dictatorial tendencies of the controlling faction and it is safe to say that the expulsions, suspensions and harassment of critical voices will continue on a higher level.
Resistance to China’s role in the economy and labour movement is developing unevenly due to the historic relationship between China and the Alliance leadership especially those in COSATU whose role has been to deliver workers to the altar of capitalism in exchange for parliamentary and government seats as well as personal perks. China’s involvement in NUMSA, SAFTU and SRWP has made the task of winning working class independence from all imperialisms more urgent. Workers are organising in small but persistent ways, to build alternatives to the bureaucratic Stalinist faction that is based materially and politically on shop stewards. Recently the Shaun Magmomed branch in Western Cape region of the SRWP wrote a scathing attack on the Stalinist reformist faction acting as the willing grave diggers of the advanced working class of South Africa.
The labour movement must bury the notion that China is a progressive ally of South African workers. It must also realise the independent interests of China in controlling and capturing the labour movement in order to advance its own interests. China does not act on behalf of the USA or any other western imperialist power-the US/UK/EU bloc has whips and chains of its own operating under the guise of USAID Africom. Failure to appreciate the imperialist nature of China, and Russia, leads to political sterility and blunders in the labour movement and socialist organisations. Orientation should be towards the rank and file workers to create radical class struggle caucuses as opposed to orienting towards “progressive” elements of the leadership who opportunistically use radical postures to hoodwink and capture workers and who would use every opportunity to close rank in the name of unity.
