By George Tsibani:
The comparison between Zamikhaya Maseti and Julius Caesar is apt, as both leaders are driven by ambition and a desire to shape their respective domains.
Maseti’s article sounds very positive but highlights Caesarian methodology regarding global efforts by SACP, including the SACP cadres’ economic analysis today through Minister Enoch Godongwana’s MTBPs, read with the RMB October 2025 Report.
Corruption and decadence
Maseti’s critique of the SACP cadres highlights an urgent need for alignment with Left-wing global policies, strategies and plans. He experts the cadres of SACP not to be found with “self-serving tendencies”, which is reminiscent of the corruption and decadence that Caesar sought to challenge in ancient Rome.
By invoking Caesar’s legacy, Maseti is emphasising the need for bold and transformative action within the SACP, rather than mere rhetoric or empty promises. The parallel between Caesar’s efforts to reform the Roman Republic and Maseti’s call for SACP cadres to prioritise workers’ interests is striking, and underscores the urgency of the challenges facing South Africa’s economic landscape.
A barrier to working-class advancement
In the context of Marxist-Leninist theory, Maseti’s analysis highlights the contradictions within the SACP, where the pursuit of power and privilege has led to a disconnect between the party’s leadership and its base. In my humble view, the SACP’s cadres have become a bureaucratic elite, more concerned with maintaining their own positions of power than with advancing the interests of the working class.
As Marx and Lenin argued, the role of the vanguard party, such as the SACP in ZA, is to lead the working class in the struggle for socialist transformation through alliance of Left-Wing Global Politics and related mega infrastructure investment programmes. Maseti’s critique may suggest that the SACP has abandoned this role and instead has become a barrier to the advancement of the working class. It is only through a recommitment to its core values and principles that the SACP can reclaim its role as a champion of the working class and lead the struggle for a socialist South Africa.
A wake-up call from Maseti
The dialectical process of history demands that the SACP cadres transcend their narrow self-interests and prioritise the needs of the working class. Maseti’s analysis serves as a wake-up call for the SACP to recommit itself to its core values and principles, and to prioritise the needs of the working class in its economic policies and decisions.
The South African Communist Party’s ( SACP) situation is a stark illustration of the corrupting influence of power and privilege on even the most well-intentioned ideologies. The party’s cadres have become so entrenched in their own self-interest that they have lost sight of the very principles they are supposed to uphold.
‘Do as I say, not as I do’
This is a classic case of “do as I say, not as I do,” where the leadership preaches revolution but lives a life of bourgeois luxury. The cadres’ actions are a manifestation of the inherent contradictions within the party, where the pursuit of personal gain has become the primary objective, rather than the pursuit of socialist transformation.
Zamikhaya Maseti’s article is a nostalgic look back at a bygone era, but the world has moved on. The SACP’s caravan manifesto is a relic of the past, and its cadres are more concerned with protecting their own perks than with serving the people.
This is a hollow exercise in futility, a desperate attempt to claim relevance in a world that has left them behind. Maseti’s ambition, akin to that of Julius Caesar, is evident in his analysis of the SACP in the context of local and global economic models and political landscapes. However, his efforts are undermined by the party’s own failures.
Parasitic blood-sucking fatcats
The Red Book’s quote about cadres being the backbone of the party is a scathing indictment of the SACP’s current state. These cadres have become parasites, sucking the life out of the ANC and South Africa’s resources.
They are more interested in blue lights and fat paychecks than in serving the working class. Marx and Lenin would be turning in their graves if they saw how the SACP has devolved. The party has lost its way, abandoning the global left and embracing bourgeois privilege. This is a crisis of identity, a struggle to reconcile ideology with self-interest.
The SACP’s cadres are caught in a contradiction, torn between their professed ideology and their own material interests. The ruling class will not give up power without a fight, and the SACP’s cadres would do well to remember that. If they do not transform, they will become irrelevant to the struggle for socialist transformation in South Africa.
Return to the working class or opt for betrayal
The party’s only hope for redemption lies in a fundamental transformation, one that prioritises the interests of the working class over those of the bourgeoisie. Anything less will be a betrayal of the principles of Marxism-Leninism and the struggle for a socialist South Africa.
In conclusion, Zamikhaya Maseti’s analysis of the SACP cadres through the lens of globalisation and his Caesarian ambition highlights the strategic placement of SACP cadres in key economic positions within the ANC-led government. The ANC recognised that the national question was inextricably linked to global markets and economic models, and thus positioned SACP cadres to lead the economic cluster and skills accords to maximise global economic impact.
The levers of the economy are in their hands
With the rich historical ties between South Africa, Cuba, Russia, and the People’s Republic of China, the SACP cadres were tactically and operationally placed in key economic positions within the public administration and management since 1995. This strategic placement has enabled the SACP cadres to shape South Africa’s economic policies and decisions, with a view to advancing the country’s interests in the global arena.
Some notable examples of SACP cadres who have held key economic positions include:
- Alec Erwin, who served as Minister of Trade and Industry (DTI) in 1995 and was also SARS Commissioner,
- Pravin Gordhan, who served as Minister of Finance and previously held positions as Minister of Public Enterprises, Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, and Minister of Energy,
- Blade Nzimande, who served as Minister of Higher Education and Training (DHET) from 2009 to 2017 and is currently Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation (DST),
- Rob Davies, who served as Minister of DTI from 2009 to 2019
- Gwede Mantashe, who served as Minister of Mineral Resources from 2009 to 2018, Minister of Energy from 2018 to 2019, and is currently Minister of Mining and Mineral Resources,
- Ebrahim Patel, who served as Minister of Trade and Industry (DTI) from 2017 to 2019 and previously served as Minister of Economic Development,
- Thulasi Nxesi, who serves as Minister of Labour, and
- Enoch Godongwana, who serves as Minister of Finance.
These SACP cadres and their counterparts in all organs of state in the Republic of South Africa, as part of the global village, have played a crucial role in shaping South Africa’s economic policies and decisions since the dawn of our democracy, and have helped to advance the country’s interests in the global arena. The SACP has been a responsible alliance partner with global left countries to lead economic reforms beyond the African Union (AU) Agenda in 2063, not with the caravan economic model but with mega infrastructure programmes under the BRICS economic bloc. The party must come to a party in mapping out how to address the existing contradictions it has created as a leader of the economic cluster in ZA politics.
I humbly submit!
Dr George Tsibani
Reply from Zamikhaya Maseti:
Mjojana! Your rejoinder is profoundly reflective and demonstrates a remarkable grasp of the dialectical interplay between ambition, ideology, and praxis in the political economy of the SACP. The Caesarian analogy is both intellectually provocative and strategically sound. It situates my critique within a grand historical continuum of transformative leadership, where ambition is not mere self-promotion but a revolutionary catalyst for structural renewal.
Call for Party to reclaim its space
Indeed, by likening my ideological ambition to Julius Caesar’s reformist zeal, you underline the necessity of political will and philosophical depth in redefining the trajectory of the Left in South Africa. Caesar’s transformation of Rome from a decaying republic into an empire resonates with my call for the SACP to reclaim its vanguard role and reconstruct its economic and political relevance.
Yet, as your analysis suggests, this transformation demands the purging of parasitic bureaucratism and self-serving opportunism that have corroded the Party’s moral authority.
Embedded influence, ideological fatigue
Your emphasis on the SACP’s cadres holding strategic state positions, Godongwana, Mantashe, Nzimande, Patel, and others, llustrates both the Party’s embedded influence and its ideological fatigue. These positions have the potential to advance Socialist transformation through State machinery, yet they have too often been converted into instruments of bureaucratic comfort.
The contradiction you highlight between revolutionary rhetoric and bourgeois practice echoes Lenin’s warning against a “Party of officials detached from the Proletariat.”
It’s nostalgia or realignment for the Party
What is most commendable in your rejoinder is your insistence that the SACP’s renewal lies not in nostalgia but in realignment with the international Left, particularly within the BRICS-led global infrastructure agenda. You rightly locate the Party’s historic mission in the global struggle against neoliberal dominance, and in leveraging South Africa’s geopolitical position for socialist economic reconstruction.
The Caesarian ambition embodies, as you note, must thus be institutionalised, not in the form of personal aggrandisement, but as a disciplined collective pursuit of socialist transformation.
In sum, Mjojana, your response affirms that the dialectic of ambition and ideology, of Caesar and Marx, must culminate in a new synthesis: a revolutionary SACP, grounded in its historical mission and reconnected to the working class. This, indeed, is the essence of your intellectual provocation, an invitation to revolutionise not just the Party, but the very consciousness of its cadres. – @NewsSA_Online
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