These writings span 27 years but are arranged thematically into four parts to capture synchronous lines of thought developing out of transformative praxis, the consistent underlying thread. At the same time each theme is arranged with its own chronology and can be explored independently as part of a holistic body of work.
This is the title used for an article published in the Daily Maverick ‘Without a serious challenge from the left the political field in South Africa could see the emergence of an extreme right’. The words ‘extreme right’ replaces ‘neoliberal right’ contained in the published version. Chapters derived from the Democratic Marxism series, that served as framing chapters, have been edited to remove synoptic overviews of other chapters in those volumes. The longer version of the article for Monthly Review ‘End Eco-cidal Capitalism or Life on Planet Earth: A South African Contribution to Eco-socialist Strategy’ has been used in this book.
As praxis centred writings implicated in resistance and activism these writings are diachronic; language has changed over time and depending on the context, either inside the sacp or outside, particular language registers express themselves, informed by particular considerations. Hence, the following words need to be clarified upfront including their usage. The term ‘National Democratic Revolution’ derives from the sacp’s strategic thinking on a two stage approach to the transition to socialism. The term also has common currency within national liberation discourse. It is a crucial political category denoting inclusion, deep democracy and transformation of social relations. In formal sacp documents it has particular attributed meanings. In this book the term ‘passive revolution’ is used to dissect the unravelling of the ‘National Democratic Revolution’. It is an analytical category derived from the work of the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, and refers simply to a form of non-hegemonic rule, a type of fraud; a class project to hide real interests, agendas and processes of change as part of making capitalism. The ‘passive revolution’ is not transformative and fails to change power and socio-ecological relations in furtherance of the interests of the many.
‘Third World’ was used in some of these writings in the 1990s to capture the uncertainty of political alignment in the post Cold War world. Generally, ‘Third World’ is more than geographic specification but about a common project amongst anti-colonial countries and non-aligned countries. A lot has changed since. ‘Hegemonic revolutionary-reforms’ is a language used to refer to the building of elements of socialism through the sacp’s political program
‘Zumafication’ is about more than the individual Jacob Zuma but refers to an ethno-nationalist, authoritarian and criminalised class project. ‘Neoliberalism’ is used to define a US led class project and an accumulation model transnationalising monopoly capital. Finance has been pivotal in this process. ‘Afro-neoliberalism’ is about indigenising this class project and giving it African characteristics. ‘Neoliberalisation’ is the process to give more power to corporations, finance and deep globalisation.
There is also a variegated vocabulary used to reference transformative politics and can be considered as inter-changeable. This includes ‘generative’, ‘anti-capitalist emancipatory practice’, ‘emancipatory politics’, ‘systemic alternatives’, ‘democratic systemic reforms’, ‘deep just transition’ and ‘counter-hegemony’, for instance.