27 December 2022

The South African Communist Party (SACP) wishes the people, the majority of whom are the workers and poor, a prosperous new year, 2023.

In 202, the SACP held its watershed 15^th National Congress. The key outcomes included the vitally important resolution to build a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor and to assert the independent voice of the Party and the working-class at large in all respects. Through this resolution, the SACP aims to deepen the struggle with and for the workers and poor, developing itself as a vanguard force, to achieve the immediate aims and take care of the future of the working-class.

As we bid farewell to the year 2022, we held the second plenary of the Central Committee elected by the 15^th Party Congress to adopt a programme of action to take the work forward in the new year and beyond. Deepening the democratic struggle, transformation and development to overcome the high levels of unemployment and poverty is essential to advance South Africa towards shared prosperity. This requires strengthening the power and widening unity of the working-class and tackling economic exploitation and inequality. A powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor is essential for South Africa to advance towards shared prosperity, including lifting the poor out of poverty, creating employment at scale, and systematically ending inequality.

In our communities and the policy space, we will take forward the Land, Food and Work Campaign we launched in 2022 under the banner of the Red October Campaign. This campaign will make a difference in the quality of life of our people through advancing towards accelerated land redistribution, food security and the right to work for all.

Load-shedding continues its stranglehold on the economy and household support, care and maintenance as we end the year 2022. The government needs to urgently turn the situation around, overcome the immediate energy crisis, and ensure a just transition in all respects. This will go a long way in addressing problems such as de-industrialisation, unemployment and stagnant growth.

The SACP will continue to support the workers across the economy, the public sector included, in their efforts to improve their conditions and defend their hard-won gains, including collective bargaining. The year 2022 has seen organised labour moving closer to greater unity through joint action on this front. The SACP will continue to encourage this collaboration. We will continue to work towards the trade union movement convening a joint summit to discuss the challenges faced by workers and consolidate a collective response among others against neoliberalism, state capture and other forms of corruption.

Women and the youth are the largest components of the workers and poor. We will advance the struggle for gender equality by among others purposefully aiming at achieving women emancipation as an apex priority and fighting gender-based violence and crime in our communities and the economy. Together with the workers and poor, we will advance the struggle to tackle the economic and social problems affecting the youth.

Internationally, we are facing serious challenges from the deepening crisis of global capitalism. This is expressed, among others, through the exercise of force by Western imperialist powers, who want to continue their world domination and exploitation, inflicting more misery, in addition to the legacy of colonialism.

New geostrategic shifts, world power and interstate relations have shaken the Western imperialist powers, exposing their weaknesses. This is taking place in an ever-changing international atmosphere of contest, co-operation and shifts threatening to end the unipolar world dominance by the US-led imperialist powers.

The SACP reiterates its call for an end to all imperialist wars.

We express our solidarity with the people of Swaziland struggling for democracy, the people of Western Sahara against occupation by Morocco and the people of Palestine against the occupation of Palestinian territories by the apartheid Israeli regime.

We express our solidarity with the people of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and others in Latin America and elsewhere against imperialist aggression.