Post-Communism and the South African Communist Party. Issue 4 (4th July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lodge, Tom
• Is Part Of: Problems of post-communism. Volume 66:Issue 4(2019)
• Page Start: 287
• Page End: 299
• Publication Date: 2019-07-04
• Subjects: Post-communism -- Periodicals; Post-communism; Periodicals; 330.91717
• DOI: 10.1080/10758216.2018.1425094
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1075-8216

Abstract

Abstract : In what ways does the trajectory of the South African Communist Party correspond with general features of post-communist politics? This paper will show how the party remains far from being reconstituted as a post-communist formation. The party's leadership remains inspired by Leninist precepts and its own historic strategic perspectives, and draws purpose from its proximity to power. But it struggles to maintain a vanguard function in a political economy in which the industrial working class has weakened and its own mass membership, recruited from unemployed rural youngsters, is motivated by office-seeking rather than solidarity.