30 July 2007
86th Anniversary Message of the South African Communist Party
86 years ago, on July 29 1921, the Communist Party of South Africa was launched in Cape Town. For 86 years South African communists have been in the forefront of the struggles of the workers and poor of our country.
The SACP today is built on a tradition of 86 unbroken fighting years!
Today, as we celebrate our anniversary, we are a South African Communist Party with more than 51,000 members. It is the largest membership ever in our history. We have more than doubled in size since 2002.
We have grown because we have been active. We have grown because we have been prepared to speak up in defence of workers and the poor:
The Developmental State envisaged should have the capacity to lead an industrial policy promoting a labour-intensive and sustainable manufacturing sector as the basis to transform, diversify and build a vibrant economy. Correctly noting that nationalisation is not a panacea to South Africa`s developmental challenges, the SACP resolved that as an immediate programme to lead industrialisation, the State should be in control of energy production (SASOL) and production of iron ore and steel (Mittal Steel). We therefore call for the re-nationalisation of SASOL and Mittal Steel. This will ensure that the production of energy, iron ore and steel is performed in a sustainable, environment friendly and developmental way, not for narrow elite profiteering.
We further resolved that any other developmental intervention should be redressing the spatial and geographic inequalities through infrastructure investment in areas which apartheid deliberately underdeveloped. Skills development, training and education should be aligned with the developmental initiatives that are underpinned by an industrial process and decentralised development. Economic development and infrastructure investment should not be limited to few rich areas only-new Industrial hubs in the poorest provinces should be established to address the massive poverty and unemployment challenges.
How do you explain the fact that Limpopo is home to platinum reserves and other precious minerals and metals, but with an unemployment rate of over 50%, and over 60% of its population living below the Poverty line? Despite the crisis levels of unemployment and poverty, Limpopo experiences one of the highest out-migration rates in the country, with Sekhukhune, Capricon, Vhembe and Mopani District Municipalities being on the Top 10 Municipalities experiencing the highest out migration in the past 5 years. The beneficiation and manufacturing of Minerals in Sekhukhune and other parts of Limpopo should be retained to the ownership of the people as a whole, and they be given skills and education to share in the wealth of the land.
No wonder, then, that hostile elements in the bourgeois media are today forced back into the bankrupt argument that the SACP "has nothing new to add to ANC policy"! We take this as a sign of our success. It is success for our principled stands. It is success for our patient, non-sectarian work within our alliance ranks. It is success for our ongoing mobilisation of working class forces.
This is exactly the role of a vanguard Party. We have never opposed our own government for the sake of it. We are not oppositionists. We have never sought to invent differences between ourselves and the ANC, so that we can "brand" ourselves. We are not a commodity for sale on the capitalist market.
But when there were mixed signals from government on the tragic HIV and AIDS pandemic sweeping our country, the SACP stood firm and spoke clearly. We joined those struggling for an effective roll-out of anti-retrovirals as part of a comprehensive approach to the pandemic.
When state apparatuses have been abused for internal factional purposes within our movement, we have spoken out to defend the rule of law and the integrity of our state institutions. We will continue to do so.
When there was silence on the tragedy unfolding in Zimbabwe, the SACP spoke up and mobilised in solidarity with the workers and poor of our neighbouring country. And it is the SACP that has consistently raised the forgotten case of Swaziland, in which a state of emergency has prevailed since 1973.
Over the last years we have actively campaigned against the anti-working class policies and practices of the big banks and private financial institutions. We have exposed the Credit Bureaux and the merciless loans sharks, the mashonisas. We have begun to push back a little the anti-poor practices of the banks with the Mzansi account. In struggle we have campaigned for the new Credit Act, and we have won a partial amnesty for those black-listed by the Credit Bureaux. In struggle, we have catalysed much greater government efforts in regard to cooperatives, and to ensuring the roll-out of affordable, accessible and safe public transport.
Surely the morality of our revolution cannot be subjected to the triumph of money over the will of our people. The process of private accumulation by a few, at the direct expense of the direct producers - the workers and the majority - stands in fundamental contradiction to all what our constitution seeks to achieve; a truly egalitarian society. The values of society should be defended against any form of patronage by the rich and by those who abuse the people`s mandate to govern, and deliver services.
Because the majority of our people are poor, without jobs and sustainable livelihood, our democracy is also threatened by the power of money. The fact of the matter is that the South African economy, and therefore its politics, is still overwhelmingly shaped by the rich. It is this reality that we must change the economic foundations of our society in order to solidify the foundations of our democracy. In a society where the minority has money and the majority is poor and without resources, there is indeed a danger of the triumph of money over the people`s will. To protect our democracy we need to ensure that the people`s will triumphs over money!
The SACP, as a Party of the working class and the poor, has direct interest in the direction of the State and how it functions. Our aim is to transform the State, the economy and society for the benefit of the working class and the poor. Our 12th National Congress resolved that the SACP should contest State power in elections in a reconfigured alliance. The Central Committee was then mandated by Congress to actively pursue the different potential modalities of future SACP electoral campaigning. We have a responsibility to define the manner in which the SACP should contest elections.
There was no doubt in our resolution to contest State power through elections in a reconfigured alliance that the Alliance remains the vehicle towards fundamental transformation of South Africa. Congress made a profound emphasis that our alliance with the ANC and COSATU should be maintained and built in the struggle to resolve the class, gender and national contradictions.
In addition the SACP has committed itself to building working class power in our communities, to build people`s power and fight poverty; to build working class power in the workplace to challenge managerial unilateralism; and to ensure that the values of solidarity and collective working class effort is the main driver of change in society
As Communists, shoulder to shoulder with all other progressive forces in our country, we have been active, and we have been successful across a broad front. But we know that the struggle continues. As long as the commanding heights of our economy are dominated by profit-maximising monopoly capitalists, every advance will be partial, every victory will be threatened. The struggle continues!
As we commemorate our anniversary we know that our call: "Communists to the Front!" is not a just a slogan. It is a reality. It is a reality that has been carried forward consistently for 86 fighting years. And so we say again: Communists to the Front!
To Make the Second Decade of Freedom - The Decade of the Workers and Poor!