In the recent quarrel between the ANC and SACP over the latter’s critique of the government of national unity (GNU), the term national democratic revolution (NDR) was bandied about like confetti at a wedding. What is the NDR and why does it matter in the relationship between the SACP and ANC?
To appreciate the NDR we have to start way back in history at about the time of the 1848 revolutions, when the Austro-Hungarian and other European empires were breaking up into smaller entities. In that context the national question emerged, referring to the rights of nations to self-determination, which had been suppressed by these empires. This raised other questions, especially for the left: how did such self-determination relate to the question of moving towards socialism?
The late Egyptian intellectual Samir Amin wrote that “the national question, which in the 19th century was primarily that of oppressed European nations, was transferred to the 20th century to Asia and Africa, where it became the colonial question”.
The concept of national democracy emerged as colonies were gaining independence, achieved through a broad alliance of the widest range of forces opposed to colonial rule. National democracy, for Marxists, represented a transitory point in the journey to socialism.
Putting it at its simplest, this is what led to the concept of national democratic revolutions, meant to depict the liberation of a population so that it could go through the stage of national liberation before moving to the next stage, namely socialism. It was contrasted with the bourgeois democratic revolutions, which maintained the capitalist structure within a democracy.
For the longest time revolutionaries in SA debated how to relate the struggle against capitalism to the struggle against white rule. The approaches differed on how white rule was seen. The SACP and ANC saw SA as a case of colonialism of a special type (having its own acronym, CST); special because the colonial powers resided in the same territory as the colonised. This meant the aim of the struggle was to achieve political liberation, which could lay the basis for advancing to the next stage, a socialist future.
On the other hand, as argued by some pan Africanists, Marxists and proponents of black consciousness, SA was a case of racial capitalism and that the struggle should aim to move directly to a socialist state.
This debate came to the fore again when SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila argued last year that “the problem in the GNU lies in one critical issue: the prioritisation and inclusion, above all else, of the right-wing, neoliberal, white-led DA in a country whose population is overwhelmingly African and black”.
He argued that such a move represents a “form of recolonisation” and that “bold and radical shifts in policy is needed to strengthen our NDR”. At the same time the SACP announced its intention to go it alone in the 2026-27 local government elections.
That stung the ANC. In what some observers described as a Christmas gift to the SACP, on December 21 Joel Netshitenzhe argued that the timing of the SACP’s decision to contest elections alone could lead to the weakening of both the ANC and the SACP and, by extension, the NDR and the SACP’s pursuit of socialism.
Speaking as leader of the ANC at the party’s 113th founding anniversary, President Cyril Ramaphosa invoked the NDR 17 times. He assured party faithful that the “formation of the GNU is a tactical decision to pursue the NDR under new conditions occasioned by the electoral setback” the ANC had suffered in the 2024 elections.
And now you too can take part in dinner conversations about the GNU without mixing your NDRs for your CSTs. And you would not be politically incorrect if you argue, as I do, that the 1996 constitution and Bill of Rights provides a sufficient framework for the pursuit of a truly radial agenda: the deepening of our democracy and the safeguarding of our citizens' socioeconomic rights.
• Abba Omar is director of operations at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection.
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