SACP Western Cape Provincial Statement On the Young Communist League

29 September 2002

The SACP Western Cape Province held a Youth Desk workshop on Saturday the 28th of September 2002 at Cape Technikon. Over 100 delegates attended the workshop from all SACP branches across the province, with the presence of several Provincial Executive and Central Committee members as well as veterans of the party (SACP).

The objectives of the workshop were:

• To give concrete expression and elaborate the 11th National Congress resolution to establish the Young Communist League (YCL)
• To assess the role of the youth in striving for Socialism in the South African context
• And to examine the socio-economic conditions of the South African youth across a wide spectrum of society and insights.

Specific focus was given to the state of the youth movement in relation to Politics, Culture, Religion, Education, the Economy, HIV/AIDS, Health and Gender inequalities.

The high level of theoretical and ideological debates embodied the SACP young members resolve to wage an offensive against capitalist hegemony and influence amongst the South African youth.

The youth holds capitalism directly responsible for the high rate of unemployment amongst the youth, fostering material values, misleading and virtually emasculating political and class consciousness amongst the youth in constructing a society based on equality.

This should contribute to building a Socialist South Africa with the direct ownership and control of the means of production by the working class. The level of discipline, nurturing and fraternal respect for diverse interests of the South African youth will guide the operations of the YCL.

The Anti-privatisation campaign was accorded special attention with the SACP and youth committing and throwing its weight behind the anti-privatisation strike organised by COSATU on the 1st and 2nd of October. Furthermore the following declaration was made:

The SACP Cape Technikon Declaration (28 September 2002)

The delegates of the SACP branches and districts attending this Youth Desk Provincial Workshop on Saturday the 28th September 2002 at Cape Technikon in preparation for the establishment of the Young Communist League hereby declare the following:

• We are committing ourselves to embark on a thorough consultative and participatory processes to seek support for the reestablishment of the Young Communist League.
• We commit ourselves to work together with the current official constitutional structures of the South African Communist Party to achieve the above.
• This process will encompass a thoroughgoing process of political education and ideological training in Marxism-Leninism as a basis upon which we build our youth organisations and the SACP so as to change society and achieve Socialism.
• We will continue to critique and criticise capitalism so as to empower ourselves with the knowledge, skills, strategies and tactics to overthrow capitalism.
• We will forge worker solidarity with the youth as a basis of creating broad based working class alliance and effect full national liberation and Socialism.
• We will cooperate and not compete with other PYA structures in order to realise commonly held objectives.
• We are totally committed to uproot gender inequality in society by actively taking part in the struggle for women emancipation.
• Our struggle for youth development and emancipation must be understood within the context of contributing to defeating the aims of imperialist globalisation.
• We are embarking on this minimum program and to implement it towards the achievement of the processes of reestablishing the Young Communist League.
• We declare that the Young Communist League is strategically part and parcel of the SACP and must be understood as such.

Socialism Is the Future! Build It Now!
With and for the Workers and the Poor!

Issued by:
Lawrence Maduma
SACP Western Cape Provincial Secretary
Cell No: 082 628 8976
Office: 448 7908