SACP,+85+years+of+unbroken+communist+struggle+in+SA



=The SACP – eighty-five years of unbroken communist struggle in South Africa=


 * Inspired by the Russian Revolution**

85 years ago, on July 29th 1921, the Communist Party of South Africa was launched in Cape Town. It was the first communist party in Africa, and among the earliest members of the newly formed Communist International based in Moscow.

Throughout the world, working people and the poor were inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution. For the first time in history, workers and peasants had successfully overthrown the bourgeoisie, and embarked upon a socialist revolution.

Many, including the founders of the CPSA, believed that the Russian Revolution was the beginning of a world revolution that would soon roll through countries like Germany and Italy in which the working class was well organised and militant.

We now know that capitalism has proved to be more resilient (and more barbaric) than communists in the 1920s had hoped. We now also know that the heroic advances made in the early years of the Soviet Union were to be rolled back. This was partly due to the unceasing destabilisation by a hostile imperialist world. It was also due to serious internal weaknesses and grave errors.

And yet, whatever the misplaced optimism of the founders of the Communist Party in South Africa in 1921, the fundamental vision with which they launched the CPSA has successfully inspired generation after generation of South African revolutionaries.

The advances made in our country over the last 12 years would not have been possible without 85-years of unbroken communist struggle in South Africa.


 * Our Contribution**

Over 85 years, the Communist Party in South Africa has been:


 * the pioneer of **non-racialism** – from the 1920s, and for most of its existence, the Communist Party was the only political formation in South Africa in which there were black and white members struggling together shoulder to shoulder in the same trench. As communists we have laid down a tradition of non-racialism that has now become a foundation-stone of the new South Africa;
 * a party of militant **trade-unionists –** from the early ICU days of Cdes EJ Khaile, Jimmy La Guma, and Johnny Gomas, through the generation of Cdes JB Marks, Ray Alexander to Billy Nair and to younger party militants, communists have been in the forefront of organising workers.
 * a party of **mass mobilisation –** from our earliest years, Party cadres like Edwin Mofutsanyana and Josie Mpama, have been leading militant struggles of communities against poor housing and corrupt officials.
 * a party of **rural activism –** In the 1920s Cde SP Bunting worked in the deep rural areas of the Transkei, in the 1940s and 50s communist militant Cde Alpheus Madiba mobilised in the north amongst peasants and also among migrants in Johannesburg from these rural areas.
 * a party of **co-operatives** and community work – in the 1940s, Dora Tamana pioneered a cooperative movement in the informal settlements of the Cape Flats, a tradition that has been taken forward into the present by a new generation of young communists.
 * a party of **guerrilla fighters** and **martyrs –** through the bitter years of minority rule, Party militants have been among the first in sacrifice – from Johannes Nkosi, gunned down in 1930 for leading an anti-pass campaign, through to an outstanding 1976 generation of courageous young communists, among them Petros Linda Jobane (“Gordon Dikebu”), the Lion of Chiawelo, who surrounded and alone held off the apartheid police, down to his last bullet. The Party of Chris Hani remembers and salutes all of its heroes and martyrs.
 * a party of **revolutionary theory and learning –** as a revolutionary party, we have always taken collective learning, analysis, discussion and debate very seriously. In the earliest years, Communist militants like TW Thibedi and Eddie Roux pioneered what we would now call “ABET” (adult basic education and training). They ran night-schools in which migrant workers were provided with basic literacy and political theory. In MK camps and in prison yards during the apartheid years, communist party militants – among them Jack Simons, Mzala, and Govan Mbeki – wrote books, conducted classes and stimulated political umrabulo even in the most unfavourable conditions.
 * a party of **internationalism** – the earliest founders of the Communist Party in South Africa, among them David Ivon Jones, writing about the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, helped to bring an internationalist perspective into our own local struggles. That is a tradition that lives on today – a new generation of communists is active in the Cuban solidarity struggle, in taking up solidarity with the workers and poor in Zimbabwe, Swaziland, and with the oppressed Palestinian people.

The SACP of 2006 is proud to be the bearer of this incredible legacy. It is a legacy that is both an asset, and a responsibility. We cannot as a Party, or a movement, or a country, betray the hopes, aspirations and sacrifices embodied in 85-years of unbroken communist struggle.


 * New Challenges and Threats**

Over the last decade and a half, the local commercial media has told the South African public that we were one of the “last remaining communist parties in the world”. We were labelled a “dinosaur”. In 2006 we draw strength from our own legacy, but also from a world in which the left is re-awakening. The people of Cuba, led by a communist party, have survived the worst of their enforced isolation, and continue with new strength to build an inspiring society based on social solidarity. Even in advanced capitalist countries like Italy, there are now, once more communist ministers in a left-leaning government; in India, communists have won elections consistently for many years in West Bengal (population 40 million) and in Kerala. In Nepal, communists have been in the forefront of toppling an anti-democratic monarchy. Throughout Latin America – in Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, amongst others – left forces, often including communists, are rolling back the neo-liberal empire.

Over the last 12 years, the SACP has been faced with new challenges and threats. Within our movement some comrades have lost faith in socialism. Others have succumbed to the temptations of power and privilege that the new dispensation has brought. Some have gone out of their way to belittle the SACP – we are labelled “ultra-leftist”, “outdated romantics”, and “naïve ”,“ betrayers of the legacy of Moses Kotane”.

We will not be side-tracked by these jibes - whose class interests are all too obvious. We will continue to draw strength from our unbroken legacy, and from the hopes and aspirations of millions of workers and poor in our country.

For 85 years we have kept the red flag flying here in South Africa. Shoulder to shoulder with exploited factory-floor workers, with casualised seamstresses and temporary cash till operators, with the millions of unemployed, with the landless, the black-listed and the red-lined, with students who have been financially excluded, with communities battling against corrupt officials, with public sector workers, like teachers and nurses, doing their best to serve their people often with few resources, with the HIV positive, with economic refugees from failed states in our region, with all democratic and peace-loving South Africans – we pledge to honour our 85 years legacy.

We are this year celebrating our anniversary through three major activities. Our provincial, district and branch structures are debating the SACP Central Committee discussion document on the SACP relation to state power, including possible electoral options. We have also declared 29 July 2006, the Red Saturday, a day on which we will be holding pickets and demonstrations calling for a once-off amnesty for all from the credit bureaux. We will also be demanding a new, but affordable, model to finance low-cost housing, including a demand for a shorter bond repayment period for the workers and the poor.

All these activities are pursued under our 85th anniversary theme “will culminate in a national rally that will be held in Pietermaritzburg on 30 July 2006!


 * Speakers at the National event in Pietermaritzburg will include:**


 * Blade Nzimande, General Secretary (SACP)**
 * Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary (COSATU)**
 * Jacob Zuma, Deputy President (ANC)**


 * For Media accreditation to the event in Pietermaritzburg on Sunday, 30 July 2006 please RSVP:**

Tel: 011 339 3621
 * Kaizer Mohau**
 * Media Liaison Officer**
 * South African Communist Party (SACP)**
 * Fax: 011 339 4244**
 * Mobile: 076 775 2040**
 * Email: kaizer@sacp.org.za**
 * Website: [|www.sacp.org.za]**
 * Fax 2 email: 086 613 5646**


 * __For interviews Contact:__**
 * Malesela Maleka**
 * SACP Spokesperson**
 * 082 226 1802**

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