Umsebenzi Online, Volume 20, No. 01, 27 January 2021
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Volume 20, No. 01, 27 January 2021 |
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Red AlertSACP Centenary Focus: Tribute to Bram Fischer, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of Paul, his only son |
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27 January 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Abram “Bram” Fischer's son, Paul. He was only 23 years old. This is particularly important to commemorate, in tribute to Bram Fischer, in the light of the apartheid regime having intended to cause untold pain to him as a lesson to all others not to join the Communist Party and the struggle against apartheid.
When his son died, Bram was serving his life imprisonment, having been sentenced in 1965. In addition to extreme measures visited upon Fischer, apartheid authorities did not allow Bram to attend his son’s funeral. Paul had cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease, and so they had really a tough time to care for him. His life expectancy was an estimated six years, yet he fought, and the family fought, and he lived to 23 years of age. He even won himself a degree with honours. His sister, Ilse, still alive, was very close to him, cared for him, and studied with him at the University of Cape Town, until his death. Their mother, Molly, died in June 1954 in a terrible accident.
As the SACP marks its centenary since its formation, it is important that we reflect on the life of Bram, and this is crucial particularly in this 50th anniversary of Paul’s death.
Bram Fischer’s contribution to the struggle was not merely as a White man in solidarity with the oppressed Black majority. Rather, rooting his understanding of society in Marxism-Leninism, he understood that the apartheid regime could not be defeated without waging the class struggle while at one and the same time engaging in a fierce struggle for the freedom of the oppressed African/Black majority.
With deliberate and conscious action, Bram jettisoned all his privileges, both present and future ones, and committed himself fully to the struggle for liberation, democracy, and socialism as the sustainable solution to the system of capitalist exploitation, its endemic crisis, and consequences. Having been born into a highly respected Afrikaans family, his father would later become a highly respected Free State judge. Bram was a direct descendant of an Orange River Colony prime minister (1907–1910). It would seem, therefore, that he would have had a fairly cushioned life and connections within the apartheid system. Yet he became conscious of the wickedness of the system and dedicated himself, wholeheartedly, to contribute to its defeat, sacrificing even the comfort of his family in doing so. His wife, Molly, also a communist and member of the Communist Party by 1942 in her own right, also made a sterling contribution which must be acknowledged, for she was not an appendage of her husband.
The apartheid regime was tightening its oppression on communists during the 1940s, in response, on the domestic front, to the working class struggles that intensified during that decade with communist cadres playing key roles. Internationally, the anti-colonial struggle in the Global South was also intensifying, with the Soviet Union playing a crucial, supportive role. This led to the apartheid regime adopting the Suppression of Communism Act, in 1950, with Bram becoming a marked man.
Fischer was a key player in the transition of the struggle towards the adoption and integration of the armed pillar of the struggle, especially when he became the SACP’s Chairperson in 1961, the same year the joint SACP and ANC’s military formation, uMkhonto WeSizwe, was launched. A year before then, in 1960, the strategy of the national democratic revolution was formulated from a meeting of Communist and Workers Parties held in the Soviet Union. A year after Fischer became the SACP National Chairperson, in 1962, the Communist Party adopted its programme, the Road to South African Freedom, articulating the theoretical thrust of the national democratic revolution from a concrete analysis of the concrete situation and historical conditions obtaining in South Africa, and the way forward. The programme characterised South Africa as a colony of a special type.
Unlike in the majority of the world’s colonial situations, by Colonialism of a Special Type (CST) the programme was referring to the reality of South Africa in which the colonial oppressors and the oppressed majority lived in the same, indivisible territory, but which was racially segregated. Class inequality, and the exploitation of labour by capital arising out of it, underpinned the racial segregation, as well as the accompanying patriarchal domination of women. The three forms of oppression were hardwired right in the base structure, the economy, and were articulated throughout the superstructure, all institutions and social settings existing in the society whose roots are anchored in the economy as their foundation.
As such, the strategic goal of the national democratic revolution was, correctly so, understood to that of resolving the interrelated class, racial/national, and gender contradictions, and securing democratic national sovereignty. The historical mission of the national democratic revolution, also known as a non-capitalist development path, was understood from a revolutionary perspective as that of laying the basis for an advance to socialism. For that to happen, save for tactical manoeuvring, which is necessary in every class conflict, the nucleus of national democratic revolutionary measures had to be socialist in orientation. Dialectically, intensifying the struggle for socialism was key to guiding the national democratic revolution towards its logical conclusion. Correctly understood, the two were not one and the same but distinct, interrelated, and mutually supporting. Thus, neither were they teleological stages but had to be carried out simultaneously to achieve the desired goals.
In the tumultuous years that followed, Fischer’s legal skills would prove indispensable when many of our movement’s comrades were arrested. He willingly threw in these legal battles, defending the Rivonia Trialists as a senior advocate. Bram was arrested on 23 September 1964 for contravening the Suppression of Communism Act. The apartheid regime had earmarked him even before it passed the Suppression of Communism Act. The regime’s hope at that moment was that it would permanently quell the anti-apartheid struggles by arresting the most influential leaders of the liberation movement.
Defiant till the end, Fischer refused to submit himself to the barbaric laws and monstrous policy of apartheid. In line with this defiance, he did not show up for his trial, where he was scheduled to appear. He was later captured and faced more politically charged criminal charges, including the crime of sabotage. In 1966 he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment under the Suppression of Communism Act.
The apartheid regime feared Bram Fischer so much that even after his death, following cremation, the authorities could not allow any bit of freedom for his ashes. They impounded his ashes in fear that they would be a source of inspiration for the revolutionary movement.
For his contribution to the struggle against apartheid, on 1 May 1967 the Soviet Union awarded Bram Fischer the Lenin Peace Prize. He was the first from Africa to receive the award. Fischer remains one among only two South Africans to receive it. Anti-communists, who double as apartheid apologists, fought tooth and nail, unsuccessfully to block the bestowing of an honorary doctorate, posthumously, to Bram Fischer by Stellenbosch University in 2004. Their opposition was based only on the fact that Bram was a communist, the same reasoning Janusz Walus used to murder SACP General Secretary, Chris Hani.
The main airport in the Free State Province is named after Bram Fischer, and more still has to be done to recognise and celebrate his contribution to the struggle for liberation, democracy and social emancipation in South Africa.
In this the SACP’s Centenary Celebrations, there is a need to make serious reflections on the contribution of Bram and honour him befittingly. One of the most practical ways to honour Bram, of course, is for all of us to make practical and personal sacrifices in the fight for socialism. One hundred years since the formation of the SACP, we need to demonstrate with action, by pushing people first and having people before profits. This is how we can defeat the coronavirus disease, Covid-19.
Umsebenzi Online is an online voice of the South African working class
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