ABSTRACT
South Africa's political landscape has been utterly transformed in the relatively brief period since the Marikana massacre of August 2012. This chapter suggests the important challenges facing the process of reconstituting a new mass left movement, in part because of the crisis of the capitalist economy and the restructuring of society and the working class. National Union of Metalworkers South Africa's expulsion by the Congress of South African Trade Unions leadership was a political decision aimed at excising from the federation mounting discontent over the politics of the tripartite alliance and their effects on trade unions and the working class. An important limitation of the community-based movements and labour struggles has been their disconnection from one another. The youth movements have been characterised by their independence from existing political parties and support for anti-austerity or new left-wing organisations.
