International

The real Chris Hani

interview

by Vicki Erenstein Ya Toivo

The January 1992 edition of the publication Political 
Affairs, theoretical journal of the Communist Party, USA, 
carried a "Response to Angela Davis" by Tony Monteiro. 
Unfortunately, that was the next to last reference to her 
surname, as Mr. Monteiro, with the apparent acquiescence 
of the magazine's new editor, referred to Ms. Davis 
throughout the article by her first name. More than anything 
else, Monteiro's observations continue the efforts, at which 
some have stubbornly been engaged, to misrepresent what 
occurred at the December 5-8 Congress of the South 
African Communist Party and to pretend its proceedings 
bore some resemblance to the tragic 25th Convention of 
the CPUSA.

Evidently, Monteiro had access to the complete version of 
the interview conducted by Vicki Erenstein with the 
SACP's new general secretary, Chris Hani, following the 
Congress in Johannesburg. He observed that both Hani 
and outgoing General Secretary Joe Slovo (Slovo, who is 
ill, was elected SACP chair) had sought unsuccessfully "to 
qualify the word socialist with the adjective democracy." 
What he failed to note was Hani's statement: "I don't think 
that a lot should be read into the decision to remove the 
adjective 'democracy'." 

Nor did Monteiro note Hani's description of the SACP's 
commitment to a multi-party system and how the party must 
realize its quest for a leading role in society "in competition 
or contest with other political organizations or formations."

Political Affairs readers, therefore, have knowledge 
(although incomplete) of Hani and Slovo's role in the 
debate. People's Weekly World readers, on the other hand, 
do not, for the relevant sentence was excised from the 
version of the interview conducted by Erenstein for the 
paper. The original interview transcript was too lengthy for 
the two pages allotted for it in the PWW (Jan. 4) and most of 
the cutting done on the first part of it could be justified for 
reasons of space. However, what was done to the latter 
portions dealing with the party is an example of creative 
editing par excellence. What follows is the complete 
transcript. The portions in boldface did not appear in the 
PWW.

Monteiro's contention that the SACP Congress rejected 
portions of the draft manifesto written by "the outgoing 
leadership headed by Slovo," especially those parts 
advocating some alleged "overt turn to social democracy", 
is a fantasy. The manifesto as approved will appear in a 
future edition of Dialogue & Initiative. D The Editors.


The South African Communist Party held its Eighth 
Congress December 5-8, 1991, in Johannesburg. This was 
the first open congress held by the SACP since it was 
declared illegal by the apartheid regime in 1950. Attended 
by 400 delegates, by the leaders of the SACP's partners in 
the tripartite alliance, the ANC and COSATU, by 
international guests and by numerous observers and 
journalists, the Congress established the SACP's complete 
emergence from underground and its role as a rapidly 
growing party of South Africa's working class. Chris Hani, 
member of the National Executive Committee of the ANC 
and Chief of Staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe, was elected 
general secretary of the SACP and former General 
Secretary Joe Slovo was elected chairman. This interview 
was conducted by Vicki Erenstein Ya Toivo on Chris 
Hani's first morning at his new  post.


Q: The Congress of the SACP has taken place on the eve 
of CODESA [Convention for a Democratic South Africa], 
where the question of the transfer of power to the South 
African people is on the agenda. Is this transfer of power 
imminent?

A: I would be careful about saying that it is imminent. It 
certainly is an item which looms very high on the agenda of 
CODESA. The main objective of CODESA as far as the 
perceptions of the ANC and the Communist Party are 
concerned is to bring about the speedy transfer of power 
from the minority to the majority in this country. We say, for 
instance, that CODESA should consider the creation of a 
climate for political participation. Second, CODESA should 
begin to discuss the issue of broad constitutional 
principles. Third, CODESA should also deal with the issue 
of an interim government.

Why an interim government? We are thoroughly convinced 
that the present government cannot be in charge of the 
processes of transition. It cannot be both a referee and a 
player. Therefore, we need an interim government which 
would have as its main function to facilitate conditions for 
the convening of a constituent assembly. It is our view that 
only a sovereign constituent assembly, made up of elected 
representatives of all of the people of South Africa, can 
handle the task of drafting a new constitution. That 
constitution is the one that should be used to elect a new 
democratic government. Therefore, at CODESA we are 
going to place before the representatives of the different 
political parties the need for the speedy setting up of an 
interim government.


Q: Which issues do you think will be the most difficult to 
resolve at CODESA?

A: We don't see an easy process. I think it's going to be 
stuck on the refusal of the Pretoria regime to accede to an 
interim government. But it is unacceptable to both the party 
and the ANC that the Pretoria regime should impose itself 
on the people of South Africa to determine the transitional 
authority. The transitional authority must be one that is 
acceptable to all the people of South Africa and surely the 
Nationalist Party is not acceptable. But we have always 
said that negotiations are a terrain of struggle. For us, our 
success will revolve around the degree of support that we 
are able to garner on the part of the people, on the part of 
the oppressed people of South Africa and other democratic 
sections. This government must be pushed and pressurized 
to agree to the principle of an interim government and to 
legislate for an interim government so that it should have 
the force of law. In the view of the party and the ANC, this 
interim government should be established as soon as 
possible, so that the process of setting up the constituent 
assembly may be completed in less than 18 months.


Q: Does that mean that you expect the elections for the 
constituent assembly to take place within 18 months?

A: Yes, that is the feeling of the ANC and the party. But we 
are aware of the fact that this is an issue of negotiations. We 
are going to listen very carefully and attentively to the 
responses of other parties in the course of the meeting of 
CODESA. But we are going there with this position.


Q: Will economic issues be part of the negotiations at 
CODESA?

A: No, there will just be a general stating of principles, but 
there will be no substantive discussions of economic 
matters.


Q: Do you intend to create a forum for the discussions of 
economic issues?

A: Already, the tripartite alliance [ANC, SACP, COSATU D 
Ed.] has its own economic policy forum, called the EPF. We 
are preparing positions on economic matters together with 
the ANC and COSATU. I am aware of the fact that COSATU 
has gone further to say that there should be economic 
negotiations because this government is rushing to 
introduce in this country new economic policies and is in a 
hurry to implement them. This government is thoroughly 
discredited in the eyes of the majority of the people in this 
country. You have seen this yourself with VAT [the newly-
imposed Value Added Tax - Ed.]. They imposed VAT 
unilaterally. There was so much anger and resentment that 
is still there. The government is rapidly pushing for 
privatization without discussing the issue with COSATU, 
the Party and other organizations. We say that this 
government has no right to do that, especially at a time 
when political negotiations are taking place. We feel that 
once negotiations begin, the regime should not be allowed 
to adopt new economic policies unless there are ongoing 
discussions on the part of relevant and competent bodies in 
this country. If changes in economic policies are to be 
made, this cannot be done unilaterally. There must be 
thorough discussion with the trade union movement, with 
the ANC, with the Communist Party and various other 
organizations.


Q: What is the difference between the role of CODESA in 
adopting constitutional principles and that of the constituent 
assembly?

A: At CODESA, we are going to push for the acceptance 
that this should be one united, non-racial, democratic and 
non-sexist country, for acceptance of the principle of one 
person, one vote in democratic elections, for a legislature, 
an executive and an independent judiciary. Those are the 
broad principles that we will advance, together with the 
proposal for an interim government and a constituent 
assembly. With respect to economic matters, we will 
generalize that there should be redistribution of the wealth 
of this country in order to address the problems of the 
majority, who are poor. But we don't feel that CODESA 
should begin to discuss what sort of economic policies 
should be adopted in this country.

The constituent assembly will be a body which is 
representative. We must remember that CODESA is 
composed of organizations that have not come with a 
mandate. Nobody knows the strength of the different 
organizations there. Some organizations may have no 
mandate or even a constituency. We are not sure that some 
of them represent anybody. That is why CODESA can only 
adopt broad general principles. But the nitty gritty of the 
constitution must be discussed by the constituent 
assembly, for example, such questions as: what will be the 
power of the central government; do we need two 
legislative houses and if so, what will be their power; if we 
decide upon a unitary state, what will be the powers of the 
regions; will the regions exercise some form of autonomy, 
and in what areas; what is going to be the power of local 
government.

There is a feeling on the part of the ANC and the 
Communist Party that government must be nearer to the 
people as much as possible. You cannot be nearer to the 
people as much as possible unless you have regional 
legislative assemblies and local governments that deal with 
local or regional matters. Democracy cannot just be at the 
top. It must come down to the grass roots. These are some 
of the things that must be discussed by the constituent 
assembly.

In addition, we must discuss how often elections will take 
place, whether the president should be elected by popular 
elections or by parliament, whether there should be a prime 
minister, and whether he should be appointed by the 
president or elected by parliament; whether we will adopt 
proportional representation; what will be the role of 
traditional chiefs, of trade unions. The constitution in its 
detailed form should be discussed by elected 
representatives of the people.


Q: Will the SACP play a role independent from the ANC at 
CODESA?

A: We are a party of the working class. So we want our 
focus to be on the working class. We don't want the 
interests of the working class to be marginalized in the 
course of negotiations. We must ensure that the workers 
actually play a role and that their aspirations are articulated 
in the course of negotiations. We are going to be playing 
our role together with the African National Congress and 
COSATU. We will strategize together. We will support the 
positions of the ANC because we have been part of the 
formulation of those positions. At the same time, we want to 
establish our right as an independent political formation to 
participate at the talks.


Q: Would the Communist Party participate in the interim 
government?

A: The view of the Party, and there is an ongoing 
discussion on this, is that the party should not encumber 
itself with high profile participation in the interim 
government. The interim government is a government of 
national unity and within it there would be people from 
different social and political organizations, as well as from 
the churches and even big business. In other words, it 
should be people who are generally acceptable to all of the 
parties.

Our party has a big role in terms of mobilizing the working 
class and the poor for future elections. It is my view that our 
party should devote much of its attention to preparing the 
working people in this country for democratic elections so 
that we have an effective presence in the legislative 
assemblies in the future. But that does not rule out some 
people within the party at a lower level, some technocrats 
of the party, participating in an interim government.

We shall, of course, be monitoring the interim government. 
We want to feel free to criticize it if it adopts wrong policies. 
An interim government is not elected, but it is a government 
of appointees with a very, very restricted mandate. We will 
participate in making recommendations for membership in 
that interim government, but I can't see some of the senior 
leaders of the party playing a role in the interim 
government.


THE PARTY CONGRESS

Q: Turning to the Party Congress, it was reported that the 
party has 25,000 members, 95 percent of whom have 
joined since the public launch of the party in July 1990. 
How did this tremendous growth happen? Do you expect it 
to continue?

A: We were surprised. The growth exceeded our 
expectations. But we know the reasons for the support the 
party is enjoying in this country. We have been principled 
in the fight against apartheid and white domination in this 
country. Many Communists sacrificed, they have died in 
the armed struggle and the mass struggle against apartheid. 
Communist leaders featured in the different phases of the 
national liberation struggle. This was a source of 
tremendous inspiration to the oppressed people within the 
country.

Second, the government did a lot of work for us by labelling 
us as the main enemies of the state. The government 
reserved its most vitriolic attacks for the party. It passed the 
Suppression of Communism Act in 1950 to outlaw the party. 
We were the first organization to be outlawed in this 
country. It followed that by banning people under the 
Suppression Communism Act. It was felt in the minds of the 
people that Communists were the real enemies of this 
oppressive state. So the support is also a reaction to the 
hysterical anti-Communism that exists in this country. But 
also, our Party, although it was very small for a long time, 
was very consistent and was ready to sacrifice in the 
course of the fierce battles against apartheid.

But to go back to the question of growth, the growth was in 
the form of a leap forward from August of this year, when we 
started to reestablish an organizational core of the party. In 
June or July of this year, our membership was about seven 
or eight thousand. But from then on, it took off. After this 
Congress, I believe that we are going to see a tremendous 
growth of the party. We have now an elected leadership 
and will have a Politburo that will pay a lot of attention to 
the party. We will have a core at party headquarters that 
will be in dynamic contact with the regions and the 
branches. We will not remain in our offices all of the time. 
We will take rounds, visiting the regions, addressing 
branches and holding seminars with members of the party. 
We will step up our campaign to deepen political 
education. We are also going to have a role in mass 
campaigns, especially those focusing on the plight of the 
workers and the poor, to demand the release of political 
prisoners, for houses, against inflation and VAT, demands 
for the lowering of prices on bread and other essential 
commodities that are consumed by the poor in this country. 
We will also build bilateral contacts between the party and 
the unions affiliated with COSATU to discuss joint strategies 
between the party and some of these unions and will call 
upon the regions of the party to maintain close liaison with 
ANC and COSATU at the branch and regional levels. So 
the party is going to have a visible profile.

Q: You and chairman Joe Slovo had projected a vision of 
democratic socialism for South Africa, but the delegates to 
the Congress voted to remove the adjective "democratic" 
from the references in the draft constitution and the 
manifesto to the party's socialist objective. How do you 
assess this?

A: I don't think that a lot should be read into the decision to 
remove the adjective "democratic." We should read rather 
the contribut,ons of the delegates as to why the adjective 
[changed to "word" D Ed.] democratic should be removed. 
You must remember that there was a clear commitment on 
the part of the delegates to the democratization of the party. 
We equally declared our commitment to a multi-party 
system of government. We even said that the party must 
recognize the right of each and every party to exist and 
organize in South Africa. We said that even in our quest for 
a leading role in society that we would do this in 
competition or contest with other political organizations or 
formations. But the majority of delegates felt that we must 
not say because of the distortions of socialism that have 
occurred that therefore socialism is not democratic. They 
are arguing that socialism as defined or explained by its 
founding fathers is democratic and that by saying 
"democratic" socialism you are implying that socialism is 
inherently undemocratic. And they feel that we are 
beginning to feel guilty about what is happening in the 
Soviet Union and the other Eastern European countries as 
if we are arguing that it was socialism that was responsible 
for all the problems they had.

I remember one delegate stood up to say that we must not 
confuse the tool with the worker; that if a worker makes a 
mistake using that tool, it is not the fault of the tool, but the 
fault of the worker; that the distortions were due to the 
subjective mistakes of the Communist parties or socialist 
parties of Eastern Europe and that socialism remains 
basically a champion of democracy and the rights of the 
people, especially the working people. This was put to the 
vote and the argument that "democratic" should be 
removed prevailed, despite the fact that Joe and myself felt 
that given the present situation of what has happened in 
Europe we ought to emphasize our commitment to 
democracy by including the adjective.

But I think the comrades are emphasizing that it is not the 
adjective but our own practice in building the Communist 
Party, in our own program, in accepting pluralism, in 
accepting competition with other parties for a leading role 
in the society, in other words, it is going to be our own 
democratic practices which are going to show whether we 
are democratic or not.


Q: Is socialism simply a far off vision for South Africa or 
does the party see a path to socialism?

A: I don't think it's a very remote vision. We accept the 
theory of stages, but we are not even rigid about that. In 
any country, there could be leaps, depending on the 
objective and subjective situations. We are saying now 
strongly that we stand for the victory of the national 
democratic revolution, which will lead to the 
democratization of our society. That will be revolutionary, 
because our people will for the first time in their history be 
given the vote to decide on their own government. We are 
going to push for that government to have working-class 
representatives, Communists and trade unionists in its 
ranks, within the alliance. Together with the ANC, we are 
saying that the economy is going to be mixed, because we 
want growing participation of the workers in the economy of 
this country.

It is true that we have not come with a fine definition of this 
participation. We would like, for instance, that the workers 
be involved at the point of production in determining the 
policies of companies, together with their employers. 
Second, we want to retain the option of nationalization. We 
must consider nationalizing some of the industries in the 
interest of empowering the workers. We must move away 
from this situation where nationalization in Eastern Europe 
became bureaucratic and had nothing to do with people's 
participation. We must democratize it. The trade unions and 
people's representatives should be involved in running 
nationalized industries. We must also look for joint 
partnership on certain concerns with industry. We must 
examine cooperative ownership in some industries. In other 
words, we must see how we can pull into the economy as 
many people as possible through their different 
organizations.

We feel that part of the problem in Eastern Europe and the 
Soviet Union was that only the Communist Party played a 
powerful role. We feel other democratic organizations 
should be involved in the problems of the economy of this 
country, discussing, for instance, how do we generate 
economic growth so that there can be more jobs, what 
strategies should we evolve to attract foreign investment 
that should be in the interest of expanding the South 
African economy, not just in the interest of these 
multinational companies squeezing our people as much as 
possible in order to have profits. So the party sees that 
vision.

At the same time, the party says that is the beginning of our 
march towards socialism. We must make sure that our 
vision for socialism is not diminished. But you cannot have 
a time frame because you must always be guided by the 
objective situation. Certainly we will try to restrict the 
preeminence of private enterprise by encouraging more 
forms of people's participation in the economy as much as 
possible. But this is part of the class struggle. Some of the 
issues are going to be determined by the attitude of the 
capitalist class. Others will also be determined by the type 
of government we have and how strong is the working-
class element in that government. That will be the 
subjective factor. It is also going to be determined by the 
ability of the party in alliance with COSATU to formulate a 
coherent policy for the advancement of the workers and the 
poor of this country and to devise effective strategies in the 
struggle against the capitalist class under new conditions.


Q: What role do you see for the international community 
and for the forces which have demonstrated solidarity with 
the national liberation struggle?

A: We believe that there is a need to resuscitate the bonds 
of solidarity among progressive forces throughout the 
world. We have to look at the collapse of those strong 
bonds. At one time the international Communist movement 
was a formidable force, but now it is non-existent. We have 
not come together as Communist parties to do a post 
mortem, to ask where did we go wrong?

We cannot do this in a grandiose manner given the difficult 
objective conditions. Many parties, even our own, have 
problems. But I think, in a small way, some parties now must 
begin the process of coming together and defining areas of 
common activity and common interest. For instance, how 
do we counter the increasing growth of the United States as 
the only super power? Is this in the interest of humanity? 
How do we stop the armaments race? It is no longer a race 
between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. 
But how do we stop the growing militarization, which tends 
to have an effect on the standard of living of the working 
people? How do we make sure that the military industrial 
complex does not stoke areas of tension and conflict 
throughout the world, does not, for instance, exploit 
regional problems like in Iraq and Kuwait in order to have a 
market for its arsenal? How to insure that there is a peaceful 
solution to regional problems? How do we get rid of the 
accumulated nuclear arsenal? How do we mobilize people 
throughout the world to bring about general disarmament in 
the world so that the monies that are spent on arms are 
used to improve the standards of living? How do we focus 
on all these issues? Second, how do we insure that we try 
to make our environment clean, improve the health of the 
people throughout the world, solve the problem of AIDS 
and the decline in life expectancy?

We as Communist parties must discuss how to reassert our 
position in society as we did several years ago, 
participating in demonstrations against the offensive of 
capital, demonstrating for peace. How do we bring about 
the unity in action of the peoples of the world in pursuit of 
the interests of the working class and the broad democratic 
forces? In other words, how do we capture the initiatives 
that we have lost to capitalism? How do we together 
contribute to the fight against illiteracy and disease, which 
are still problems in probably 80 percent of the world, in 
Asia, Africa and Latin America? These are the problems 
that we should begin to focus our attention on as 
Communist parties. How to exchange experiences, how to 
inspire one another, because now there is a growing 
despondency and frustration on the part of many 
Communist movements throughout the world. We have got 
to stop this because that despondency and frustration 
plays into the hands of the capitalists, who are continuing 
to turn their backs on the majority of humanity.


Q: Does your party expect to take any initiative to bring 
Communist parties together?

A: We shall be consulting with Communist parties and we 
must not have unrealistic expectations. We were heartened 
by the visits of international guests to our congress and for 
us that's the beginning of once more restoring 
internationalism. And we are going to be communicating 
with other Communist parties to raise certain issues. We 
shall start in Africa to explore whether there are still existing 
some Communists or left-wing parties. I think we need to 
broaden to include parties that are not regarded as 
orthodox Communist parties. We have to bring in left-wing 
parties and environmental groups and identify areas of 
common interest. I don't think that we should just remain a 
clan. We have to move out of that narrow way in which the 
international Communist movement acted in the past.	o

Vicki Erenstein Ya Toivo is a U.S. attorney living in 
Namibia.