When we fight, we win. If we are too scared to fail, we will do nothing.
On the fiftieth anniversary of the Soweto uprising, left political formations gathered in Johannesburg to confront a paradox that haunts post-liberation societies everywhere: formal freedom without material transformation. South Africa, where nearly half the workforce cannot find work and multinational capital continues its quiet extraction, has become a mirror for the global condition — a place where the promises of liberation have curdled into austerity, and where the question of how oppressed peoples organize themselves in a declining imperial order has become, the conference argued, a matter of human survival itself.
- South Africa's left convened in crisis — with 43.7% effective unemployment, a hollowed-out ANC, and the far right moving freely through the space that organized politics once occupied.
- Speakers framed the moment not as isolated national failure but as a symptom of hyper-imperialism: a global system in decline lashing out through military aggression, information control, and intensified extraction from the Global South.
- The left's own defeats were placed on the table — trade unions weakened, political education abandoned, mass movements replaced by NGOs and electoral maneuvering that left workers without independent power.
- Concrete models were invoked as proof of possibility: Kerala's cooperatives, Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement, the SACP's Red Caravans — fragments of organized working-class life that refuse to wait for permission.
- The conference closed not with resolution but with direction: rebuild rooted mass organization among workers, the unemployed, women, students, and communities, grounded in political education and genuine internationalism.
In late May, political formations from across South Africa's fractured left gathered in Johannesburg for three days of strategy and debate. The timing was deliberate — more than thirty years after apartheid's formal end, the country remains caught in a different kind of extraction. Official unemployment stands at 32.7 percent; counting those who have stopped looking, it climbs to 43.7 percent. Multinational corporations continue draining national wealth. The ANC, once the vessel of liberation, has calcified into a party of the comfortable. The right moves freely. The left is demoralized.
The conference's central question was urgent and unresolved: how does the left organize when the global economic order is visibly failing? Speakers argued that since 2008, growth has stalled, debt has ballooned, and productive investment has withered. The traditional centers of imperial power have not recovered — and in their decline, their elites have tightened control over information and escalated military aggression. This is what some call hyper-imperialism: a system lashing out to preserve itself, visible in the targeting of Cuba, Palestine, Venezuela, China, and others. But decline, the conference insisted, does not automatically produce liberation. It also produces inter-capitalist rivalry, regional wars, and intensified extraction. The decisive variable is organization.
The left was asked to reckon honestly with its own losses. During the neoliberal offensive of the late twentieth century, communist and workers' movements suffered historic defeats. Political education collapsed. Electoral politics replaced mass mobilization. The old national liberation parties and social democratic formations adopted IMF austerity as their own intellectual framework, abandoning redistribution while serving bondholders. Yet it has been the left — resource-poor and fragmented — that has continued fighting for food, water, healthcare, and social welfare.
The path forward, speakers argued, requires rebuilding working-class power as a strategic task — not through elite backroom deals, but through rooted organization among workers, the unemployed, women, students, informal workers, and communities. The traditions of political education, democratic mass organization, and internationalism — understood not as charity but as shared struggle against a common enemy — must be recovered. Models already exist: cooperatives in Kerala, land settlements built by Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement, Red Caravans run by the South African Communist Party. These are fragments of a future being constructed in the present.
The conference gathered near Soweto, a location weighted with memory. Fifty years before, on June 16, 1976, Black students marched to protest being forced to study in Afrikaans. Police opened fire. At least 176 were killed; more than a thousand wounded. Twelve-year-old Hector Pieterson was among the first to fall — carried by another student, his sister running alongside, the moment frozen by a photographer into one of history's most enduring images. Miriam Makeba would later sing of Soweto blues — just a little atrocity, deep in the city. Half a century on, the children of South Africa still need a living left. The road ahead is difficult. But imperialism is powerful, not invincible. Capitalism is violent, not eternal. History remains open — and the task, as the conference framed it, is to help organize that force consciously, internationally, and with revolutionary patience.
In late May, political forces from across South Africa's fractured left gathered in Johannesburg for three days of strategy and debate. The timing was deliberate. More than three decades after apartheid's formal collapse, the country remains trapped in a different kind of extraction. Official unemployment sits at 32.7 percent; when you count workers who have stopped looking, the figure climbs to 43.7 percent. Meanwhile, multinational corporations drain the nation's wealth. The African National Congress, once the vessel of liberation struggle, has calcified into a party of the wealthy. The left is demoralised. The right—including remnants of the old apartheid machinery—moves freely.
The South African Communist Party and the conference's steering committee had assembled a coalition of political formations, many of them splinters from the ANC, to wrestle with a single urgent question: how does the left organize when the world's economic order is visibly failing? The answer, speakers insisted, begins with understanding what is actually happening. Since 2008, the global economy has stalled. Growth is sluggish. Debt is mountainous. Investment in productive capacity has withered. The wealthy nations of the North Atlantic—the traditional centers of imperial power—have not recovered. Their grip on finance, technology, and resources has loosened. In response, their elites have tightened control over information and escalated military aggression. This is what some call hyper-imperialism: a declining system lashing out to preserve itself. The evidence is visible in the targeting of China, Cuba, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Venezuela, and Yemen. A new Cold War is underway, with the United States attempting to contain China's rise and prevent the center of gravity from shifting toward Asia.
Yet decline does not automatically produce liberation. History offers no automatic victories. The weakening of imperial power creates openings, yes—but also dangers. Inter-capitalist rivalry. Regional wars. Ideologies that poison. Intensified extraction from the Global South to the Global North. The decisive question, then, is one of organization. Can the working classes and oppressed peoples build sufficient organized power to act independently in this crisis? This is the central challenge of the era. The left itself must reckon with its own defeats. During the neoliberal offensive of the late twentieth century, communist and workers' movements suffered historic losses. Trade unions weakened. Political education collapsed. Electoral politics replaced mass mobilization. Non-governmental organizations displaced popular structures. The old national liberation parties—India's Congress, South Africa's ANC—and the social democratic parties have exhausted their purpose. They no longer believe in redistribution. They have adopted the austerity framework of the International Monetary Fund as their own. This intellectual capture has allowed governments to ignore their people's immediate needs while serving the wealthy and the bondholders. Yet it is the left, despite its scarcity of resources, that has fought hardest for social welfare, food, water, and healthcare.
The path forward requires rebuilding working-class power as a strategic task. This means more than electoral alliances or backroom deals among elites. It means rooted organization among workers, the unemployed, women, students, informal workers, peasants, and communities. The left must recover its traditions of political education, democratic mass organization, collective discipline, and internationalism—not as charity between nations but as recognition that workers everywhere confront a common enemy in capital accumulation and imperial domination. Examples exist. In Kerala, the left has built cooperatives. In Brazil, the Landless Workers' Movement has established settlements. The South African Communist Party runs Red Caravans. These are fragments of a future not yet fully arrived but already being constructed in the present—what Karl Marx called possible communism.
The conference itself could not solve every strategic question in three days. But it represented an effort to reconstruct collective political capacity after decades of fragmentation. The gathering took place near Soweto, a location heavy with meaning. Fifty years before, on June 16, 1976, Black students had marched to protest being forced to study in Afrikaans rather than their own languages. Police opened fire. At least 176 were killed; more than 1,000 wounded. Twelve-year-old Hector Pieterson was among the first to fall. A photographer captured the moment: another student, Mbuyisa Makhubo, carrying the dying boy, Hector's sister running beside them. The image became iconic. Years later, it inspired a painting. The singer Miriam Makeba would sing of Soweto blues—just a little atrocity, deep in the city. Fifty years after that massacre, the children of South Africa still need a living left. So do the rest of us. The road ahead will be difficult. But history remains open. Imperialism is powerful, not invincible. Capitalism is violent, not eternal. The working classes and oppressed peoples remain the makers of history. The task is to help organize that force consciously, internationally, and with revolutionary patience.
Notable Quotes
The central contradiction of our era lies between a declining imperialist system attempting to preserve its dominance and the aspirations of peoples and nations seeking sovereignty, development, and social justice.— Conference speaker on the global conjuncture
We are not enemies despite our differences.— Solly Mapaila, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a conference in South Africa matter to people outside South Africa?
Because the crisis they're naming—declining imperial power, economic stagnation, wealth extraction—is global. The strategies they're debating apply everywhere the left is fragmented and demoralised.
You mention the ANC deteriorating into a party of the wealthy. How does that happen to a liberation movement?
When the immediate enemy—formal apartheid—is defeated, the coalition that fought it fractures. Different classes had different interests. The wealthy elements consolidate power. The poor realize they've been abandoned. That's what's happened across the Global South.
The piece keeps returning to organization. Why is that the answer?
Because the ruling classes are organized globally through corporations, banks, media, militaries. If workers and peasants remain fragmented, they have no power. Organization is how the powerless become powerful.
You cite India's workers striking in February 2026—300 million people. Did they win?
They didn't immediately reverse the new labour codes. But they gained confidence and experience. The piece argues that even incomplete victories matter because they teach people their own collective power.
What does "possible communism" mean in the context of Kerala cooperatives or Brazilian settlements?
It means these aren't utopian fantasies. They're real experiments happening now—fragments of a different way of organizing production and life. They show what becomes possible when people organize consciously.
The Soweto reference at the end—why end there?
Because it grounds the whole argument in blood. Fifty years of struggle, fifty years of children still needing what the left promises. It's not abstract. It's personal, historical, urgent.