No Shortcuts: Rebuilding the South African Left

• South African left politics faces a recurring failure to build a sustained counter-hegemonic force because it prioritizes political forms (parties, fronts) over identifying and mobilizing actual social forces.
• The 'Conference of the Left' is seen as an opening rather than a solution; success depends on grounding diverse movements in local, material struggles rather than elite-led platforms.
• Post-apartheid capitalism has fragmented the traditional industrial working class, necessitating an inclusive movement that encompasses the informalized, precarious, and unemployed working class.

Lessons from History

• 1980s Mass Struggles: High organizational power via COSATU and civic structures, but this failed to prevent post-1994 neoliberal incorporation.
• Anti-Privatization Era: Movements like the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) succeeded by combining legal strategy, science, and grassroots mobilization, yet failed to form a durable anti-capitalist bloc.
• The NUMSA Moment: The union’s break from the ANC exposed the limits of 'union substitutionism,' where a single organization attempts to act as a broad political vehicle without deep local anchoring.
• Fees Must Fall: Represented a powerful, though contradictory, youth movement that the Left failed to consolidate into a worker-student alliance.

Strategy for Renewal

• Gramscian Historic Bloc: A coalition of diverse popular forces—including workers, shack dwellers, feminists, and youth—bound together by a shared material program.
• State Engagement: Adopt the strategy of being 'with, against, and beyond' the state: using electoral platforms to reclaim local governance while simultaneously building community-based cooperatives and mutual aid.
• Core Tasks: Move beyond desktop analysis by investing in sustained political education, popular research, and organizing capacity to turn fragmented community struggles into a coherent socialist project.