SACP+Jhb+Central+Pol+Ed+Report+for+AGM,+20+August+2006

SACP Johannesburg Central Branch
=//Report of the Political Education Sub-Committee to the Annual General Meeting//=


 * 20th August 2006.**

Volunteers for the Political Education sub-committee were Sibusiso Mchunu, Bigboy Kekana, Joe Maswanganyi, Maxwell Zalisile, and Dominic Tweedie. Comrade Sibusiso has frequently chaired the Communist University sessions and Comrade Dominic has prepared the materials and the schedule. When necessary, decisions about arrangements have been made by the assembled study circle. No special committee meetings have been held, separate from the study gatherings.

August 26th 2005 was the first session we had in the Women’s Jail, Constitution Hill. The venue has worked quite well for us, and we have staged over forty study sessions there, including the long series called “No Woman, No Revolution” and the recent “Basic Communism” series. We have also discussed the SACP document on “State Power” and COSATU’s document on “Fundamental Change”. Our sessions have been attended by between ten and twenty people on average. Our method of dialogue works well and is appreciated, understood and enjoyed by our rolling community of students.

Plain e-mailing has evolved since last year into a combined Internet archive, blog and distribution group (**//see our diagram//**). More than 870 individuals receive these mailings daily at present, and the list is still growing. There have been more than a quarter of a million “page views” on the web site to date, making this the third most viewed site of its kind out of approximately 6,500 others in the world.

One result of all this Internet work has been the Communist University CD has not been produced or aggressively sold, unfortunately. Comrade Thando Tshangela represented the Jhb CU, the SACP and the YCL last May in Cuba at the 3rd International Conference on “The Work of Karl Marx and the challenges of the 21st Century”.

16 more sessions are scheduled during 2006. Our welcome at Constitution Hill is no longer as warm as it used to be. We are still allowed the use of a bare room, with table and chairs, but that is about the limit of it. We still hope that things may improve and go back to the way they were before, or even better.

Comrades, the purpose of the study circle from the point of view of the Party is to generate political cadres who can take up the political and administrative work of the Party, whether within the SACP or in the mass movements, such as trade unions or peace and international solidarity campaigns.

SACP comrades who develop through the Communist University are not being given enough responsible tasks to perform, soon enough. YCL comrades who are capable should not hang around too long at that level but should move up into the ranks of the Party as soon as they are capable.

The Jhb CU has helped the YCL to get their study circle going. It seems to be working well. We hear of many other political education initiatives. Some of them may be using our materials. The future of the CU is to increase the number of people attending to at least double what it is now, and also to increase the mailing list.

More people should share in the work of planning, printing, writing and managing web sites.