CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Building Working-Class Power and Completing South Africa’s Democratic Revolution

South Africa witnessed a historic Conference of the Left convened by the South African Communist Party (SACP) from 29–31 May 2026. The gathering brought together communist parties, socialist organisations, trade unions, community formations, women’s organisations, youth movements, progressive intellectuals and academics, progressive traditional leadership, faith based organisations and international solidarity partners in what can confidently be described as the most significant gathering of the South African Left in the democratic era.

For more than three decades after the democratic breakthrough of 1994, progressive forces often engaged each other through fragmented campaigns, issue-based coalitions and sectoral struggles. Never before had such a broad spectrum of left and progressive forces met collectively to deliberate on a common programme of action aimed at rebuilding working-class and popular power. For this reason alone, the Conference of the Left represents a historic turning point.

Yet the conference was not a ceremonial gathering. It was convened at a time when global and South African capitalism is experiencing a profound structural crisis. Mass unemployment, deepening poverty, worsening inequality, gender-based violence, de-industrialisation, corruption and growing social despair continue to shape the lives of millions. South Africa’s official unemployment rate stood at 32.7 percent in the first quarter of 2026, while the expanded unemployment rate remained above 43 percent. Poverty continues to affect more than half of the population using upper-bound poverty measures, while South Africa remains one of the world’s most unequal societies, with a Gini coefficient of approximately 0.67. These realities have reinforced a fundamental conclusion: political freedom alone is insufficient without economic emancipation. The Marxist tools of analysis remain critical, ownership and control of the means of production in South Africa cannot remain in the hands of capital.

From a Marxist-Leninist perspective, the central contradiction remains the concentration of ownership and control of the economy in the hands of monopoly capital which is significantly white in the South African context. The democratic breakthrough of 1994 was a major victory over apartheid and the colonial project, but the negotiated settlement at CODESA did not fundamentally alter economic relations to benefit the majority of the previously oppressed black South Africans. Political rights were secured, but economic power remained largely intact in the hands of established capitalist interests. The transition averted what could have been a blood bath or civil war, albeit that the period was marred by orchestrated violence. However, the land question and........

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