Tall ships sail into Amsterdam for giant maritime festival

The event was first organised in 1975 to celebrate Amsterdam’s 700th birthday.

AMSTERDAM THE FIRST STOCK EXCHANGE

By AFP
August 20, 2025


The spectacle launched Amsterdam's five-day maritime festival - Copyright AFP/File Ebrahim Hamid
Stéphanie HAMEL

Tall ships from around the world paraded up the North Sea Canal into Amsterdam on Wednesday, with crews from Peru, Uruguay, Germany and France waving from their decks as crowds cheered along the banks.

The spectacle launched Amsterdam’s five-day maritime festival, a celebration of ships, sailors and the city’s seafaring past that is expected to draw between 2.3 and 2.5 million visitors.

The Sail-in Parade is the most challenging moment of the festival, harbour master Milembe Mateyo told AFP.

“There’s a lot of press, there are an extreme amount of boats who want to see it, a lot of people in high places who want to be there, so that is the most (challenging),” she said.

“Once that is safely over, I can finally sleep and enjoy the rest of the festival.”

The Sail Amsterdam festival — now in its 10th edition — is part of the city’s 750th anniversary celebrations.

This year, it will feature around 50 tall ships and 700 historic vessels.

Sail Amsterdam chairman Arie Jan de Waard said this year’s theme for the event was “United by Waves”, chosen in response to global tensions.

“It’s important that we connect through the water and through the cultures on the ships and the crews who gather here in Amsterdam,” he told AFP.

“I think that’s very, very important.”



– Thousands of spectators –



The parade began in IJmuiden on the North Sea coast, where the first ships passed through the giant sea locks shortly after 10:00 am before making the 25-kilometre (15.5-mile) journey inland.

The flotilla, stretching around 10 kilometres, included naval training vessels, steamships, sailing heritage craft and a swarm of recreational boats that joined the procession.

Thousands of spectators lined the canal from the locks to the IJ harbour behind Amsterdam’s Central Station, where the tall ships were greeted with cannon salutes and music.

Families perched on camper vans, schoolchildren leaned over barriers and pensioners waved flags as crews shouted greetings from the rigging.

Siep de Haan, 60, said he had become “addicted” to Sail Amsterdam after seeing his first edition a decade ago.

“We love boat parades,” he told AFP.

“We invented the pride boat parade here in Amsterdam 30 years ago and 10 years ago I saw here my first sail and now I’m addicted to the whole thing.”

Another member of the crowd, Daniel Top, said he had been coming to Sail Amsterdam since childhood.

“It’s always a fun family event for us,” the 28-year-old said.

“Maybe we’ll go out on the water later in the week with a little boat to see the ships from the water.”

The event was first organised in 1975 to celebrate Amsterdam’s 700th birthday. It has been held every five years since then, except for in 2020, when it was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

That makes this year’s event the first in a decade.

Over the coming days visitors will be able to board the tall ships, watch a parade of hundreds of international crew members through the city centre and attend concerts and receptions along the waterfront.

On Sunday, the vessels will sail out to sea in a second grand parade.

Among the lighter traditions is the piramide, where locals float home-made rafts cobbled together from surfboards, chairs or anything else that drifts.

Few make it to the finish, but the point is spectacle rather than seamanship.

GOOD NEWS

Brazil records 65 percent drop in Amazon area burned by fire


ByAFP
August 20, 2025


Aerial view of a fire in the Amazon rainforest near the northern Brazilian city of Labrea on September 4, 2024 - Copyright AFP/File MICHAEL DANTAS

The area of Amazon rainforest lost to fires in Brazil in July fell 65 percent compared to a year ago, the MapBiomas monitoring platform said Wednesday, boosting the government as it prepares to host the UN climate change conference.

Satellite images showed that 143,000 hectares (353,360 acres) of the world’s biggest tropical forest were razed by fires last month, down dramatically from the same month last year, when a historic drought whipped up record numbers of fires.

The figure — the smallest since MapBiomas began monthly satellite mapping of fire damage in 2019 — comes three months before President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hosts the COP30 UN conference in the Amazon city of Belem.

Across Brazil, 748,000 hectares of land were consumed by fire in July, down 40 percent on last year.

Between January and July, a total of 2.45 million hectares burned across Brazil, down 59 percent over the same period in 2024.

The Cerrado, a vast region of tropical savannah in central Brazil, suffered the worst destruction in July, with 571,000 hectares going up in flames, down 16 percent in a year.

Felipe Martenexen, a researcher at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, attributed the improvements to a “more intense and sustained rainy season” this year.

He added that the environmental and economic damage wrought by the 2024 fires and increased surveillance by the authorities of land clearance may also have “led farmers and residents to be more careful.”

While drought abetted the spread of fires last year, many of the blazes were started illegally by people clearing land for agriculture.

Lula has pledged to end Amazon deforestation by 2030.

India test-fires ballistic missile ahead of US tariff hike

NEW PAL WITH CHINA, RUSSIA, IRAN


By AFP
August 20, 2025


India's Agni-5 missile, displayed during a rehersal in 2013 for the Republic Day parade in New Delhi - Copyright AFP/File RAVEENDRAN

India on Wednesday test-fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, a government statement said, in an apparent show of strength ahead of a threatened US tariff increase.

The Agni-5 missile was successfully launched in India’s eastern Odisha state, with authorities saying it “validated all operational and technical parameters.”

The test-fire came a week before US tariffs are set to double from 25 percent to 50 percent, unless India meets President Donald Trump’s demand that it stop buying Russian oil.

India last tested the Agni-5 missile in March 2024.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said this month that, in the face of US tariffs, India was seeking self-reliance with energy independence and the development of its own defence systems.

New Delhi has deepened defence cooperation with Western countries in recent years, including in the Quad alliance with the United States, Japan and Australia as an apparent counter to rival China.

But India’s relations with China have warmed recently with several bilateral visits, and Modi is scheduled to visit Tianjin later this month in his first visit to the country since 2018.

Agni, meaning “fire” in Sanskrit, is the name given to a series of rockets India developed as part of a guided missile development project launched in 1983.

The Agni-5 employs technology that enables it to carry several nuclear warheads, so they can split up and hit different targets.

Pensioners on the frontline of Argentina’s fiery politics


By AFP
August 20, 2025


A woman holds a sign that reads in "Enough of Milei," outside of National Congress in Buenos Aires - Copyright AFP Menahem Kahana

Leila MACOR

It has become a tradition Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires: each Wednesday, baton-wielding riot police corral or confront a band of protesters brandishing signs, shopping bags and walking frames.

For sure, these veteran “militants” are vocal. Sometimes they are even feisty.

But they are also gray-haired, wrinkled and at times struggle to keep their balance.

“For God’s sake!” 87-year-old Ricardo Migliavacca shouted during a recent police advance that nearly toppled him. “How disgraceful!”

He recovered only with the help of his sturdy blue Zimmer frame.

Migliavacca is just one of hundreds of pensioners who have taken part in weekly protests against Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei.

They want a pension increase to soften the blow of Argentina’s seemingly endless price increases.

But Milei — who at 54 is still at least a decade away from retirement age — is not convinced.

The economically ultraliberal president has twice vetoed moves by Congress to raise pensions.

This, after all, is the politician who has brought a chainsaw on stage to demonstrate his cost-cutting zeal.

“My task is not to seem good, it is to do good,” he said in a recent speech, “even if the cost is being called cruel.”

During this last year of protests, his government and the police have been accused of just such cruelty.

They have used tear gas, spray, batons, rubber bullets, and water cannon to disperse the pensioners — and the assorted groups that join them.

The government does not report figures on injuries or arrests during the protests.

But according to Amnesty International, 1,155 people were injured last year, 33 of them hit by rubber bullets in the head or face.

During one recent scuffle, blows were exchanged on the police line.

In a narrow alley, an elderly man writhed on the floor as helpers tried to pour liquid into his tear-gas-seared eyes.

A young couple in a glass-walled gym nearby ignored the scene and continued lifting weights.



– ‘Gangster retiree’ –



Beatriz Blanco is about to turn 82.

She arrived at one protest wearing a shirt reading “gangster retiree” — the nickname the government gave her for allegedly assaulting police officers.

“Watch out, she’s dangerous!” jokes a man as he sees her pass.

She smiles and waves her walking stick in greeting.

In March, the octogenarian was pushed by a policeman and hit her head on the pavement, leaving her lying in a pool of blood.

“I thought I was dead,” she said. “Then came the anger and pain of being unable to fix anything.”

Many of the pensioners have a history of activism that began as students in the 1960s, when Argentina lurched from democracy toward military dictatorship.

“I still maintain that spirit of rebellion,” Migliavacca said.

But behind the activism, there is also an acute need.

Nearly half of Argentina’s 7.8 million retirees receive the near-minimum US$260 a month.

That is estimated to be less than a third of the cost of basic goods needed by the elderly.

“You can’t live like this. Especially not as an elderly person. People need moments of joy,” Blanco told AFP.



– ‘Constantly’ beaten –



Since coming to power in 2023, Milei has sought to straighten out Argentina’s finances, cutting red tape, curbing inflation, and winning a new IMF bailout.

But his cuts have been felt acutely across the public sector: in schools, hospitals, research centers and the social safety net.

Milei’s remains relatively popular, with an approval rating of around 40 percent, but the pensioners have become one of the most prominent and emotive sources of opposition, according to political scientist Ivan Schuliaquer.

“The retirees are not showing a willingness to physically defend themselves, yet they are constantly being beaten,” he told AFP.

There are worries that the harsh security response to such a vulnerable part of the population could be desensitizing Argentines to political violence.

“What this government is doing, no one has done in the democratic era, no one,” warned historian Felipe Pigna.

Nestle unveils method to boost cocoa yields as climate change hits


ByAFP
August 20, 2025


'We are currently exploring how to apply this innovation at a larger scale,' a Nestle researcher says - Copyright AFP/File TIMOTHY A. CLARY

Faced with climate change diminishing farmers’ yields, Nestle announced Wednesday that it was working on a technique to produce chocolate by using up to 30 percent more of the cocoa fruit.

Chocolate is traditionally made using only cocoa beans taken from inside the pod, meaning that a large amount of the fruit — including the pulp, placenta and pod husk — “remains largely unused”, the Swiss food giant said.

Its researchers have “developed a patented technique that leverages all parts of the fruit inside the cocoa pod”, it said.

Everything inside the pod is collected as a wet mass that then ferments naturally, “unlocking the key chocolate flavour”, Nestle said.

“The mass is then ground, roasted and dried into chocolate flakes which can be used to make chocolate without compromising the taste.”

Nestle said the approach cut down on waste while helping farmers get more yield and value.

“With climate change increasingly affecting cocoa yields around the world, we are exploring innovative solutions that could help cocoa farmers maximise the potential of their harvests,” said Louise Barrett, head of the Nestle research and development centre for confectionery in York, England.

“While this project is still at a pilot stage, we are currently exploring how to apply this innovation at a larger scale,” she said.



– Heat takes toll –



Cocoa prices had been stable for around 10 years but began to soar in early 2023.

A tonne of cocoa was worth £1,900 ($2,560) on the London commodities market in January 2023, shot up to £3,800 a year later, and reached a high of over £9,000 last December.

The surge was the result of poor harvests in the leading producers Ivory Coast and Ghana, as unusually heavy rains, a cocoa pod disease outbreak and then drought took their toll.

In February, a study by the Climate Central research group found that “excessive heat can contribute to a reduction in the quantity and quality of the harvest” for cocoa growers.

The report calculated that over the last decade, climate change had added an extra three weeks of above 32C in Ivory Coast and Ghana during the main growing season from October to March — above the levels considered optimum for cacao trees.

The surge in prices dampened demand while also pushing farmers to devote more resources to cocoa cultivation.

That allowed prices to ease in recent months, with reserves being built up for the first time in four years.

Since the beginning of 2025, prices have declined, and a tonne was worth around £5,600 on Wednesday.

Nobel-winner Krugman warns this Trump move will do 'even more economic harm' than tariffs

Robert Davis
August 20, 2025 

RAW STORY

A Nobel Prize-winning economist warned on Wednesday that one of President Donald Trump's economic policies could do even more harm than his tariffs.

Paul Krugman, who
won the Nobel Prize in 2008 for his contributions to trade theory and economic geography, wrote on Substack that Trump's immigration policies are pushing the U.S. economy to the brink. He added that arresting and deporting workers will be even worse for the economy than what has been portrayed in the media.

"In fact, my guess is that arrests and deportations will eventually do even more economic harm than tariffs," Krugman wrote.

Trump has made immigration enforcement a central part of his second administration. He has promised to deport as many as 11 million undocumented immigrants, although media reports suggest some American citizens have been swept up in these efforts.

To Krugman, the policy could have significant impacts on the economy.

"Losing large numbers of workers sounds as if it will be bad for the U.S. economy," Krugman's essay continued. "In fact, it will be worse than you may think."

"The reason is that immigrant workers aren’t spread evenly across the economy," he added. "They’re strongly concentrated in certain industries and occupations, where they constitute a large share, sometimes a majority, of the workforce. As a result, the Trump administration’s latter-day Edict of Expulsion will be far more disruptive to the economy than the aggregate number of workers deported might suggest."

Read the entire essay by clicking here.

New US Senate report exposes force 'squeezing the life' out of hospitals and doctors' offices

Brad Reed,

 Common Dreams
August 20, 2025 

A hospital bed is pushed down a corridor. (Shutterstock)

A US senator on Wednesday released a report that detailed how private equity firms have ruined hospitals in his home state and across the country.

The report from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) documented what happened when three Connecticut hospitals—Waterbury Hospital, Rockville General, and Manchester Memorial—were bought by Prospect Medical Holdings, a private equity-backed healthcare firm.

Interviews conducted with staff members of these hospitals told a consistent story about how Prospect cut corners in nearly every conceivable aspect and worsened the care patients received at the hospitals.

Ramona, an operating room assistant at Waterbury Hospital, cited in the report, explained how Prospect went to extreme lengths to avoid spending money. She explained to Murphy that Prospect at one point stopped paying vendors, which resulted in supplies eventually growing "so scarce patients were sometimes left on the operating table while staff scrambled" to find the necessary equipment.

Staff members eventually started buying supplies themselves, with some even going so far as to buy food for their patients to ensure that they did not go hungry.

A nurse named Anne-Marie, who has worked at Manchester Memorial for over three decades, told Murphy's staff that it was only through the dedication of staff members that her hospital was able to continue functioning at all.

"You know, I'm very fortunate where I work that we still care and patients can't believe what a good job we do despite all of the obstacles and hurdles we've been given," she said. "We still show up every day and we're committed to our communities, thankfully."

Prospect didn't just skimp on buying supplies for the hospitals but also on maintaining the buildings themselves. A unit secretary at Waterbury Hospital named Carmen told Murphy's staff of two instances where the ceiling at the building fell due to years of neglect.

"We were lucky enough that the patient had already been discharged and where it fell, it would have missed the stretcher and the patient," she said of the first instance. "The other time it fell in the trauma room, it was only on top of the computers... so we called maintenance, and they came and fixed it, [which means] putting a little hose where the water is and putting buckets to catch the water…it's happened a lot."

The deterioration of patient care at Waterbury became obvious by 2019, when the report noted that it "recorded the highest rates of patient readmission in the state."

Things got even worse for the hospitals when Leonard Green & Partners, the private equity firm that at the time owned Prospect, decided to sell the land where the hospitals reside to a real estate investment firm that then leased the land back at high rates. The final blow came when Leonard Green sold off its stake in Prospect, which the report says left "nothing but debt and destruction" in its wake.

"After Leonard Green's exit, Rockville Hospital was losing so much money, they cut all but emergency and outpatient mental health services without the required state authorization, leaving many patients with no full-service hospital nearby," the report stated.

Prospect itself filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, and the fate of all three hospitals is now "in the hands of a bankruptcy judge in Texas," the report added.

Murphy's report also emphasized that the story of private equity stripping hospitals for parts is not unique to his state.

"The story of these three Connecticut hospitals is playing out in healthcare systems all over the country," it said. "Private equity comes in, squeezes the life out of hospitals and doctor's offices, and then leaves patients and communities in the lurch."

We're watching the largest and most dangerous 'cult' in American history

Seth D. Norrholm
August 20, 2025 

RAW STORY



I was dying…It was just a matter of time. Lying behind the wheel of the airplane, bleeding out of the right side of my devastated body, I waited for the rapid shooting to stop.

—Former Representative Jackie Speier in her memoir "Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back" recounting her experience after being shot five times during an ambush during her fact-finding visit to Jonestown, Guyana, where Jim Jones and his cult, Peoples Temple, had built a compound.

It, combined with everything else that was going on, made it difficult to breathe…Being crushed by the shield and the people behind it … leaving me defenseless, injured.

—Metropolitan police officer, Daniel Hodges, describing being crushed in a doorway during the January 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol

In both of the examples above, the individual speaking was the victim of extreme violence perpetrated by followers of a single person whose influence had spread to hundreds of people (in the January 6th case, thousands of people). In fact, Speier’s experience with the Jim Jones followers was part of the single greatest loss of American life (918 people) prior to 9/11/2001. These followings have been given an umbrella name — cult — and have involved what has been traditionally called “brainwashing.” The cult leader receives seemingly undying support as the Dear Leader or Savior. However, the term brainwashing suggests that indoctrinated members are robots without free will – behavioral scientists argue that this is not the case. It’s an oversimplification.


Rather than being seen as passive victims to an irresistible force, psychiatrist Robert Lifton argues that there is “voluntary self-surrender” in one’s entrance into a cult. Further, the decision to give up control as part of the cult process may actually be part of the reason why people join. Research and experience tell us that those who are “cult vulnerable” may have a sense of confusion or separation from society or seek the same sort of highly controlled environment that was part of their childhood. It has also been suggested that those who are at risk for cult membership feel an enormous lack of control in the face of uncertainty (i.e., economic, occupational, academic, social, familial) and will gravitate more towards a cult as their distress increases. I would argue that many of these factors are at play when we see the ongoing support of Trumpism and MAGA “theology.”


Psychologist Leon Festinger described the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance in which there is a disconnect between one’s feelings, beliefs, and convictions and their observable actions. This dissonance is distressing and, in order to relieve the anxiety, people may become more invested in the cult or belief system that goes against who they are individually. As such, cult members become more “dug-in” and will cling to thoughts and beliefs that contradict available evidence. In other words, they are no longer able to find a middle ground or compromise.

How does this apply to today’s politics?

There was a time when the two major political parties in America could exhibit bipartisanship by moving across the aisle to compromise on the issues on which they were legislating. Tried and true Republicans who favored small government, lower taxes, and national security could find a middle ground with Democrats who pushed for things like universal healthcare, higher minimum wages, and progressive tax reform. The abortion issue in America has been an area of debate between the parties as they debated elements like when life begins, is a heartbeat a heartbeat, and what to do about post-birth abortions (which is murder and not actually a thing). There were largely two sides of the issue and some areas for compromise.


This is no longer possible in today’s sociopolitical climate. Although members of the GOP still refer to themselves as a political party with principled stances, the reality is they have now morphed into a domestic terror organization and, to use the umbrella term, a cult – the largest and most dangerous cult in American history.

Cult thinking includes ardent adherence to group thinking such as – clinically speaking, in the face of distorted thinking we ask about one’s strength of conviction by querying, ”Can you think of other ways of seeing this?” Sadly, what we are seeing publicly is ‘No’ from those who still subscribe to Trumpism/MAGA.

Here are a few examples in today’s sociopolitical environment in which cultism has contributed to a lack of middle ground.


There is no middle ground on treasonous, conspiratorial, fraudulent behavior – these are crimes and, arguably, the worst crimes one could commit against their own country.

There is no middle ground on slavery.

There is no middle ground on allowing Americans to die through inaction in response to natural disasters and global health crises.


There is no middle ground on gunning down school children or wearing an AR-15 rifle pin and throwing away a pin to remember a Uvalde victim.

There is no middle ground on jeopardizing national security and retaining and sharing classified documents.

There is no middle ground on breaking campaign finance (i.e., hush money schemes) laws.


There should be no middle ground on tolerance of crime, period.

And so many know this. Tim Scott, Jim Jordan, and Marco Rubio (the last two having gone to law school), all know this and are smarter than they are acting – which takes us back to cult dynamics – if you are a dyed-in-the-wool cultist or pretending to be a cultist – but the outcome is the same – harm to the Country and its people – there is no difference. Whether you actually have a personality disorder or are pretending to be a sociopathically or psychopathically disordered person – if the result is the same – harm to your constituents and your country – what’s the difference? As noted in the opening paragraphs, there is a voluntary submission to cultism – Rubio, for example, identified all of the reasons why the 45th President was not qualified when he himself was running for President in 2016. However, perhaps due to his own intolerance of uncertainties in his life, volunteered for Trumpism.

What can be done?


There are exit strategies for people ensnared in a cult. One factor is accountability or repeatedly seeing the adverse consequences of the group’s behavior (e.g., indictment, incarceration, job loss) which we started to see even more of this week.

But until one party and its ardent followers can admit they are in a domestic terrorist cult and as Rep. Eric Swalwell said are “unserious” people, there is no hope of unification on the horizon. The first step is getting through to people who can’t or won’t see the truth.

About the Author:

Seth D. Norrholm, PhD (Threads: neuropsychophd; X, artist formerly known as Twitter: @SethN12) is a neuropsychologist and independent socio political columnist. Dr. Norrholm has spent 20 years studying trauma-, stressor-, anxiety-, depressive-, and substance use-related disorders and has published over 135 peer-reviewed research articles and book chapters. The primary objective of his work is to develop “bench-to-bedside” clinical research methods to inform therapeutic interventions for fear and anxiety-related disorders and how they relate to human factors such as personality, genetics, and environmental influences. Dr. Norrholm has been featured on NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC’s Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, Politico.com, The New York Times, The New York Daily News, USA Today, WebMD, The Atlantic, The History Channel, Scientific American, Salon.com, The Huffington Post, and Yahoo.com.

'Incomprehensible': Ex-officials blast Gabbard over plans to drastically shrink a top agency

Matthew Chapman
August 20, 2025 
RAW STORY


President-elect Donald Trump said he would nominate former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (R-HI) to serve as the Director of National Intelligence, but critics and analysts aren't certain that will actually happen. (Photo credit: lev radin)

President Donald Trump's director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has a plan to cut the staff at the nation's top intelligence aggregating agency by 50 percent — and it's causing bitter divides, reported Politico on Wednesday.

"The move, dubbed ODNI 2.0, is the latest effort by the Trump administration to slim down the federal government, and comes after a wave of top-level departures at the ODNI’s Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center earlier this year," reported Maggie Miller and Dana Nickel.

As part of the broader effort by the Trump administration to lay off huge sections of the civil service, Gabbard "has already eliminated 500 staff and reduced the office’s size by 30 percent since she was sworn in to the role in February. The new plan would boost that number to over 40 percent and save more than $700 million annually."


Gabbard's main target is the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which monitors attempts by hostile foreign powers to sway public opinion in the U.S., as well as the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center.

According to her DNI, these agencies' work is already handled effectively by other divisions, and Gabbard particularly slamed FMIC as being “used by the previous administration to justify the suppression of free speech and to censor political opposition” — likely a reference to its involvement in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, which Trump maintains to this day was a hoax despite an extensive investigation detailing the whole operation.

While Trump-aligned members of Congress, like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), praised this proposal, it was promptly criticized by Democrats — as well as former members of the intelligence community.

“The ODNI was created to address obvious failures in coordination between intelligence agencies," one former NSA analyst told Politico. "It’s incomprehensible to think they can continue that work with half the staff.”

“There doesn’t seem to be a strategy,” a former senior CIA intelligence executive told the outlet. “To me, this seems to be just more of a constant reaction. Which is ironic, since that’s not intelligence analysis.”

 

South Africa: Can the SACP help rebuild a democratic, militant left?

By Brian Ashley

Published 20 August, 2025

First published at Zabalaza for Socialism.

The South African Communist Party’s (SACP) decision to stand independently of the African National Congress (ANC) in the coming local government elections deserves to be welcomed. For decades, independent socialists and other militants have argued that the Party’s subordination within the Tripartite Alliance weakened the political independence of the working class and tied the fate of socialist politics to the fortunes of the ANC. The fact that the SACP has now resolved to stand on its own — even if belatedly — represents a potential step forward in re-conquering the independence of the working class and advancing class politics based on socialist renewal.

The ANC’s political hegemony is broken, its moral authority shredded, its electoral base fractured. Yet the political space that has opened has been filled largely by right-wing forces such as the Democratic Alliance, the Patriotic Alliance and other populist outfits. The left, meanwhile, has become weaker and more fragmented, precisely when the deepening social, economic and political crisis cries out for a clear, class-based alternative.

The question all strands of the left must ask is obvious: why is the left so weak today, given the scale of the crisis facing working-class and poor people? And what can be done to reverse the situation? If the SACP’s electoral turn is to be more than another false start — like NUMSA’s 2013 break from the Alliance that never resulted in a viable workers’ party and was collapsed — then it must be accompanied by deep soul-searching, rigorous debate, and a willingness to rethink political theory and strategy.

Lessons from the Alliance

Any renewal of socialist politics must begin with an honest reckoning of the past. Why did the SACP remain in the Alliance and in government even as the ANC became a vehicle for a predatory elite? Why did it remain loyal when the ANC imposed GEAR, entrenching neoliberalism? Why did it champion Jacob Zuma as a “left alternative” to Mbeki, only to find itself shackled to another corrupt, authoritarian project? Why did it defend the state in the aftermath of the Marikana massacre rather than standing unequivocally with the striking mineworkers?

The answers lie not just in tactical missteps but in the political framework that has guided the SACP for decades — shaped above all by Stalinism, and only partially challenged by renewalists like Joe Slovo, Ruth First and Chris Hani.

Stalinism and vanguardism

One root problem is the continued hold of Stalinist ideas. After the fall of the USSR, Slovo warned against bureaucratism and affirmed democracy as central to socialism in his paper Has Socialism Failed? Yet there was never a thorough reckoning with the Party’s core strategy.

The SACP retained a dogmatic conception of itself as the “vanguard of the working class.” This bureaucratic model substitutes an enlightened elite for the conscious self-activity of the masses, blurring the distinction between the role of the party and the role of the class.

This runs against Marx’s insistence that “the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself.” By confusing its own institutional survival with the interests of the working class, the SACP weakened resistance to neoliberal restructuring and undermined the principle that socialism means freedom — the democratic transformation of all aspects of society.

Stageism and the national democratic revolution

A second weakness lies in the Party’s conception of the “national democratic revolution” (NDR). Developed in the Stalinist era of the Comintern, it entrenched a rigid two-stage theory of revolution: first, a “national democratic” stage; later, a “socialist” stage. In South Africa, this was tied to the idea that apartheid was a “colony of a special type.”

While this framework acknowledged the importance of national and democratic struggles, it obscured the extent to which racial oppression was integral to capitalist accumulation. Thinkers like Harold Wolpe, Martin Legassick and Neville Alexander showed that racial capitalism cannot be reduced to “two economies” but must be understood through combined and uneven development — where the wealth of the “first world” enclaves depended on the underdevelopment of the townships and rural peripheries.

This stageist conception led the SACP to see deracialised capitalism as a stepping-stone to socialism, rather than a barrier to transformation. The failure of the transition since 1994 confirms the flaw: taking over the apartheid state and attempting to deracialise capitalism did not open the road to socialism — it blocked it.

Bureaucracy and the petty bourgeoisie

The SACP also underestimated the corrosive role of the post-apartheid petty bourgeoisie. Frantz Fanon’s critique of the “national bourgeoisie” proved prescient. Party leaders in parliament, government and the trade unions were incorporated into the new elite through salaries, perks and patronage. This created conflicts of interest that disposed them to defend the status quo rather than lead struggles against neoliberal globalisation.

Internationalism and campism

Another weakness has been the SACP’s distorted internationalism. Shaped by “campist” politics, it often subordinated solidarity to the defence of authoritarian regimes opposed to the US. This meant ignoring or even opposing genuine struggles from below — from workers’ revolts in Eastern Europe to uprisings in Syria and Iran. Even today, the Party struggles to critique Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, equating opposition to Putin with support for NATO.

True internationalism requires rejecting both imperialist camps and standing with workers and oppressed peoples everywhere.

Towards socialist renewal

The SACP’s electoral turn could be the spark for a new chapter, but only if it is part of a broader renewal of socialist politics, rooted in democracy, mass self-organisation and unity in struggle. This means:

1. Reaffirming democracy as the essence of socialism.
2. Recognising the plurality of the left and building united fronts.
3. Rebuilding mass organisations and grassroots mobilisation.
4. Uniting struggles around immediate class demands — jobs, basic income, land reform, housing, services — while fighting sexism, racism, xenophobia and ecological destruction.
5. Reclaiming internationalism as solidarity from below, not alignment with authoritarian states.

A moment of possibility

The SACP’s decision to contest elections independently is long overdue. But if it becomes another vehicle for elite careers, it will sink into irrelevance. If, however, it sparks a deep reckoning with the Party’s legacy and bureaucratic habits, it could open the way for genuine renewal.

South Africa faces profound crisis — mass unemployment, collapsing services, inequality, gender violence, xenophobia, and ecological breakdown. The ANC has no answers. Right-wing populists offer only scapegoating.

The working class remains the only force capable of leading society out of this dead end. The choice before the SACP is clear: cling to old dogmas and repeat past errors, or embrace socialist renewal and help forge a democratic, militant left for the twenty-first century.