What are the main problems the anarcho-communist stream is confronted with in South Africa?
Michael Schmidt: Our biggest ideological challenge is the dominance among the popular classes of the ANC’s black nationalist ideology which peddles the myth of the “National Democratic Revolution”. Fortunately, over time, segments of the popular classes (especially the unemployed and the farm-labour tenants) have come to see that this “Revolution” was about the ANC enabling the survival of white capital’s exploitation in exchange for a few seats at the feast for black leaders. Also, we have deliberately called ourselves the Zabalaza (Struggle) Anarchist Communist Federation to try to establish a true grassroots communism – and to distinguish it from the SACP’s weak social-democratic version. But still, the SACP has huge numbers and resources compared to us. Which takes us to our biggest practical challenge: extreme poverty. Even many of our own members face hunger on a daily basis and the organisation is not wealthy enough to feed them (hence the food-garden idea, but it has been plagu
