February 2021

Forward to the SACP Centenary, Forward!

On the centenary Learning from our past Part 1 100 years of the Communist Party Chinese and SA Communist Parties Turn 100 Joe Slovo commemoration SACP need to support White Ribbon Campaign On Cuba’s vaccination programme

Dr Blade Nzimande Jeremy Cronin Thenjiwe Mtintso Yunus Carrim Dr Blade Nzimande Martin Dolny

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SACP at 100: Let's redouble our efforts

Blade Nzimande

The SACP this year is celebrating its centenary. This not just a timeline in its existence, but marks an enormous contribution to and sacrifice in the struggles for national liberation and socialism. The SACP as a Marxist-Leninist Party, quickly learnt soon after its formation that the struggles for national liberation of the black majority and socialism are deeply interlinked and intertwined. That is why the SACP, for most of these 100 years, threw its full weight behind, and became a part of, the National liberation movement. Not only did it become an indispensable part of the liberation movement, but it contributed immensely in the evolution of the theory behind the South African struggle, particular the deep class, national and, later, gender interlinkages in it.

The first theoretical and major contribution of the SACP in defining the path for national liberation and socialism was its adoption of the Native Republic Thesis in 1929. Although this theoretical and programmatic conceptualisation was largely a resolution taken by the Comintern, it nevertheless was indigenised in our South African realities, thus laying the foundation for the establishment of the Alliance between the ANC and the SACP, later to be joined by the progressive trade union movement. Though the evolution of the theory and practice in the Sputh African revolution was not without its ups and downs, it evolved into building a formidable movement that finally managed to dislodge the colonial apartheid regime from power in 1994.

The second major contribution by the SACP has been that it has been an integral part of all the major turning points in the national liberation struggle - the building of the progressive trade union movement, the forging of a non-racial tradition in the politics of our movement, the mass struggles of the 1950s and 1980s, the turn to armed struggle in the early 1960s, the dislodging of the apartheid regime and in the struggles for the reconstruction and development of our country through a combination of state governance and mass and working class struggles.

The SACP, through concrete struggles, developed and evolved a very rich conceptualisation of the struggle for socialism in our conditions. This was to be best captured through our programmatic slogan of 1995 - "Socialism is the future build it now!" This slogan was informed by the lessons and experiences that the struggle for socialism is not like a helicopter hovering over, but it is part of and immersed in the daily struggles of the workers and the poor. We celebrate the participation of South African communists in all key sites of struggle - the shopfloor, in communities, in the state, around gender and in the battle of ideas.

We have also through our 100-year struggle played an important role in the global communist movement and in our continent, and have constantly campaigned in support of revolutionary and other progressive struggles globally. We continue to play an active role in the International Communist and Workers' Parties' events.

Like all communist parties globally, the SACP was impacted negatively by the collapse of the Soviet Union leading to the development of a unipolar world dominated by the United States. However, this is also changing now, albeit not immediately in favour of the forces for socialism. Though the Party has remained popular amongst the workers and the poor, conditions to advance a struggle for socialism have never been this challenging.

The SACP has managed to play its role primarily because it maintained and closely guarded its independence whilst being part of an alliance with the ANC and the trade union and civic movements. The alliance is not without its own contradictions, but the Party will remain a force for socialism if it maintains its independence whilst being part of a broad range of progressive forces.

The SACP has during its centenary year, given the particular conditions we face, committed itself to building a left popular front, straddling both inside and outside the Alliance. This will lay a strong foundation for a transition to socialism, by advancing our national democratic revolution through continuously placing the working class and its organised and mass formations at the centre of the people's struggles.

We will seek to build this united front of forces through our Centenary programme of putting "People before profits", as a platform for waging anti-capitalist struggles in the here and now.

Like all Communist Parties, we have had our inevitable ups and downs, but we have had a glorious and heroic 100 years overall! We need to be proud of our history. And we need to build on this - and dedicate ourselves even more to the struggle for socialism, not just in our own country but the world over. For none of us is truly liberated unless all of us are!

Cde Nzimande is General Secretary of the SACP, Umsebenzi Editor-in-Chief and Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology

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Learning from our past - building a socialist future

What is a Communist Party?

Part 1

Jeremy Cronin

Nearly 100 years ago, on July 30 1921, the Communist Party of South Africa was launched in Cape Town. For a century, South African communists have been in the forefront of the struggles of the workers and poor of our country.

• It was the Communist Party in South Africa that first advanced the slogan "one-person, one-vote" and for majority rule - long before the ANC.
• It was the Communist Party that played a leading role in building progressive trade unionism and in pioneering critical, independent journalism in our country.
• The Communist Party was the first (and for three decades the only) political formation in South Africa to advance non-racialism, not just in theory but in our own internal organisational work, in our active membership and leadership collectives.
• It was Communist Party activists, like Dora Tamana, who ran cooperatives in informal settlements in the 1940s and 50s.
• It is Communists who have always been numbered among the outstanding martyrs of the struggle - Johannes Nkosi, Vuyisile Mini, Alpheus Maliba, Basil February, Ahmed Timol, Matthew Goniwe, Chris Hani and, many more. Sadly, but honourably, even in more recent times there have been Communist martyrs like anti-corruption campaigner Radioman Ntshangase gunned down in a post-apartheid South Africa.

These legacy contributions of the SACP were not accidents. They were rooted in our decades-long commitment to a struggle for socialism, not in the abstract, not by simply importing a model from some text, or by seeking to mechanically copy other struggles elsewhere. We have certainly drawn from the rich store of communist and socialist theory and practice.

We have consistently sought inspiration from the classics of Marxism-Leninism, and not just from a Marx, Engels, or Lenin - but also from other great contributions whether by Rosa Luxemburg, or Antonio Gramsci, or, on our continent, Amilcar Cabral and Samir Amin, to mention just a few. Over a century, with our own advances, setbacks, key strategic insights and, at times, subjective errors, the SACP has consistently sought to ground its theory and activism in the concrete context of our own country's realities.

And herein lies what is arguably the most important contribution the SACP has made over a century, not just to our own South African struggle, but to the enrichment of an international socialist struggle.

Part of this larger contribution is in seeking to answer practically a seemingly simple, but in practice complex question: What is a communist party?

In 1848 Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto provided one answer: "The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of the movement."

In this formulation it is possible to recognise what was later to be called the "vanguard role" of Communists and their organisation. Note how the Manifesto's formulation argues against what were then, and what remain, negative tendencies that recur within left-wing politics. The Manifesto argues against a mere hyper-active short-termism, and equally against an all-or-nothing, abstention from the daily struggles of working people.

But how, according to the Manifesto, is this vanguard role to be played? "The Communists", the Manifesto insists, "do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement."

To be sure, passages like these were written, in the first instance, for a small network of activists in a self-styled League of Communists at a time before there were mass-based workers' parties, or even a substantial industrial working class. "Communist" in 1848 did not carry the same weight of meanings it acquired diversely through the 20th century. Nonetheless, there is an important message here in the understanding of the party and its relationship to the movement.

The party is not a substitute for the movement as a whole. But nor is the movement a substitute for the necessity of a Party. The Party has a particular vanguard role, not bestowed upon it by declaration, but because of its activism in daily struggles of the working class (whatever their limitations), while at the same time seeking to provide a longer-term perspective rooted in a scientific approach that seeks to understand the major tendencies of a capitalist dominant world.

Let's now fast-forward to the 1921 launch of the Communist Party of South Africa (as the SACP was then known). The launch was directly inspired by the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Following the 1917 revolution the Communist International (CI) was established with its headquarters in Moscow. Small socialist groups in South Africa, most notably the International Socialist League (a principled, left-wing split from the SA Labour party), sought affiliation to the CI, and to be recognised as the official Communist Party in South Africa.

To be formally recognised by the CI required that those gathered in July 1921 in Cape Town had to adopt in a founding congress what were called "The Twenty-one Points - Conditions of Admission". While emphasising the same vanguard role of communist parties, the emphasis in these Twenty-one Points is, interestingly, quite different from the 1848 Communist Manifesto. Point 7, for instance, states: "Parties desirous of joining the Communist International must recognise the necessity of a complete and absolute rupture with reformism and the policy of the 'centrists', and must advocate this rupture amongst the widest circles of the party membership, without which conditions a consistent Communist policy is impossible." Point 13 calls for regular culling of membership - "The Communist Parties of those countries where Communist activity is legal should make a clearance of their members from time to time, as well as those of the party organisation, in order systematically to disembarrass the party from the petty-bourgeois elements which penetrate it."

It is certainly the case that at this time the CI did not mean by "clearance" of members the tragic and disastrous show trials and bloody purges of hundreds of thousands of outstanding communists (including most of the original leadership of the CI itself) during the worst of the Stalin years. But why the marked shift in tone from the Communist Manifesto's insistence that communists " not form a separate party" that is "opposed to other working-class parties"?

In 1920, when the CI adopted the Twenty-one Points, its strategic reading of the global conjuncture was that "the class struggle in almost every country of Europe and America is entering upon a phase of civil war". The newly born Soviet Union was just emerging battered and bruised, but with the upper-hand, from a life-and-death civil war struggle. The expectation was that socialist revolutions were imminent in key parts of Western Europe. In these conditions, the CI felt, military style, iron discipline was required with national parties strictly following the decisions of the Moscow centre.

In retrospect it is clear that the strategic calculation in 1920 that socialist revolutions led by a communist vanguard were about to be successful in parts of Western Europe was already misplaced. But this strategic belief lay behind what was to be the disastrous line of "a decisive war against … all the yellow Social Democratic parties" (Point 17). Characterising, as was soon to be done, mass social democratic parties like the German SPD (in which the majority of grass-roots members were sympathetic to the Soviet Union) as "social fascists", handed over these formations to right-wing leaderships, factionalised the working class, and opened the way for real fascism. In 1924 the CI changed its line, urging United Fronts with the very social democratic parties they had recently demonised. But it was too late by then.

These matters are raised here not to score cheap points, with the benefit of hindsight and from the relative comfort of 2021, against those involved in the life-and-death battles of that time. The key lesson is that the role and organisational character of a communist party is not some timeless given. Furthermore, the alignment of this role and this character with a correct strategic appreciation of the concrete reality is absolutely critical.

In July 1921 the founding members of the CPSA duly endorsed the Twenty-one points. In the South African reality of the time, the consequences of a strategic line calling for a "decisive war" against social democratic parties and unions was not to have the same tragic results as those in Germany, for instance. The South African Labour Party of the time was an all-White party formation and as the CPSA from its first years appreciated, the mass-base for a socialist, anti-imperialist struggle in South Africa lay with a majority black working class.

The 1921 launch of a Communist Party in South Africa was a major step-forward, a step that would impact across the ensuing century. However, some of the left sectarian assumptions embodied in the CI's Twenty-one Points were to have a limiting impact locally in the first decade of the party. There were attempts from the early CPSA to set up its own Red Trade Unions. And while the 1928 6th Congress of the CI was central to what was to become the absolutely seminal National Democratic strategic line of march for the SACP down to the present, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the CPSA battled to ground itself effectively. The very (and not incorrect) prestige enjoyed by the Soviet Union at the time, led to an over-absorption in affairs over there. The increasingly bitter divisions within the Soviet Party and CI, and the spill-over of these into the CPSA itself, led to a period of local factionalism, purges (even if much less than in the case of other communist parties) and a relative neglect of South African realities and priorities.

This was the context in which Moses Kotane wrote the famous 1934 "Cradock letter" to the Johannesburg District Party Committee. "My first suggestion is that the Party become more Africanised or Afrikanised, that the CPSA must pay special attention to S Africa, study the conditions in this country and concretise the demands of the toiling masses from first hand information, that we must speak the language of the Native masses and must know their demands. That while it must not lose its international allegiance, the Party must be Bolshevised, become South African not only theoretically, but in reality, it should be a Party working in the interests and for the toiling people in S Africa and not a party of a group of Europeans who are merely interested in European affairs."

In the Part 2 of this series, the immense role played by Moses Kotane, in particular, in shaping the Communist Party in South Africa, through the 1930s up until the time of his death in 1978 will be considered.

Cde Cronin is an SACP Politburo and Central Committee member, a former SACP Deputy General Secretary and Deputy Minister and a former political prisoner.

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100 years of the Communist Party in the South African Revolution: "Communists to the Front".

Thenjiwe Mtintso

2021 is a critical milestone in "our story" of South Africa as we celebrate 100 years of the Communist Party, spanning from its Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) years to the South African Communist Party (SACP). We dip our flags in memory of the communists who have fallen since 1921, those who fell in combat, those assassinated by the apartheid regime and those recently taken by the brutal COVID19. The SACP should always pride itself for having had communists who lived by the ethos of 'communists to the front'.

The centenary celebrations of the South African Communist Party provide a pivotal opportunity for reflection and recalibration of the Party's theoretical action plan - the South African Road to Socialism and also calls on the SACP to assess the gains made, the challenges faced and the lessons learnt by the Party as it played its vanguard role in the South African revolution within the international context.

Hopefully, the SACP will use the centenary as an opportunity to respond to the irritating question of whether the SACP can still be considered as a vanguard Party in the current conjuncture. It also has to explode the myth of the failure of socialism and the assumed triumph of capitalism.

From its inception in 1921 the Communist Party of South Africa, the first Marxist-Leninist political organisation in Africa, was the critical ideological and theoretical centre for the liberation movement against colonialism and apartheid in South Africa and colonialism in Africa. The theses of the Black Republic, Colonialism of a Special Type, the Four Pillars of Struggle, the National Democratic Revolution, the intersectionality and embeddedness of class, race and gender, the RDP and many other theoretical positions, policies and programmes of the liberation movement can either be traced to the Communist Party or has its imprint or influence. The content of the Freedom Charter also bears testimony to the involvement of the Communists in its drafting.

Contrary to belief, the decision to embark on armed struggle and formation of MK was made by both the ANC and the SACP and not by the ANC alone. Sometimes what is lost is the fact that the political, military, material support received by the ANC from the socialist countries was primarily because of its alliance with the SACP. Many MK combatants underwent military and political training in socialist countries.

It was not by mistake that some of the best political instructors in the camps were Communists such as Cde Jack Simons and Mark Shope, nor that Chief of Staff and Commissar, Joe Slovo and Chris Hani were communists. Thanks to the SACP, political analysis and the battle of ideas in the ANC especially before 1994 were mainly based on Marxist-Leninist tools.

The ANC, then defined as being socialist oriented, adopted Lenin's teaching that "Without revolutionary theory, there can be no real revolutionary movement". While membership of the SACP was confidential, it is well known that most of the best cadres of the ANC in all the four pillars of our struggle were members of the SACP. This was not because they were chest thumping or red T-shirt clad communists, but because they were the advanced cadres in all aspect and conducted themselves as such. Communists, with their high political and ideological consciousness, discipline, analytical capacity, commitment, integrity and readiness to serve under whatever conditions were to be found in the most difficult and dangerous conditions and missions. They served the revolution in keeping with the ethos of "communists to the front" with no expectations of accolades or personal benefits.

The vanguard role of the Party was never decreed upon it but earned in the furnace of the struggle, with the superior efforts of its leadership and cadreship as well as the devotion to the cause of the NDR and socialism for which the Party resolutely worked within and outside the ANC.

The Party, basing itself on Lenin's "What is to be Done" (1902) understood that "to seize power there must be a revolutionary party and to build socialism there must a socialist party". In 1929 the CPSA adopted the strategic thesis of "… the most direct line of advance to Socialism runs through the mass struggles for majority rule". Hence the Party's work within the Alliance with the ANC, simultaneously strengthening both while continuously deepening the NDR in all its phases.

The Party always understood Karl Marx's assertion that "…between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the evolutionary transformation from one to the other… there corresponds to this also a political transition period…" (1875). In South Africa that "political transition" is the NDR, for the achievement of which the Communist Party has spared no effort in its 100 years.

The 1962 Party programme "Road to Freedom" laid the foundations for our democratic breakthrough in 1994. The SACP's campaigns and ongoing theoretical analysis of contemporary South African settings have assisted the movement in maintaining its progressive trajectory in accordance with the ideals of the NDR. The Party's fight against HIV-AIDS denialism, in thwarting attempts to entrench a neoliberal economic policy and in exposing and valiantly fighting against the capture of the state are current gains that the Party can draw inspiration from. Today we face increasing uncertainties in the light of COVID19 that has not only ravaged the global community but exposed many of the underlying inequalities highlighting the need for a more socialised society, economy, healthcare, human thought processes etc.

What better moment than this to recharge the Party's historic mission for a more just, humane and equal society based on some of the very tenets espoused by the humble and exemplary leadership from the likes of Cdes Joe Slovo, Ruth First, Moses Kotane, Chris Hani, Josie Mpama, Ray Alexander and many other Communists.

Over the past 100 years, the Party has faced many obstacles and challenges, some self-inflicted and others beyond its control. Perhaps the worst moment for the Communists in the World and for the SACP in particular was the collapse of the Soviet Union and Socialist countries. One can still vividly recall the triumphalist declaration of Francis Fukuyama claiming the end of history. Despondency set in as many placed the USSR socialist model as a benchmark for what could be achieved in a post-apartheid South Africa. Happily, Comrade Joe Slovo's, "Has Socialism Failed?" put the challenges of building communism into context especially highlighting the centrality of democracy in Socialism.

Perhaps it was at this time of the changed fortunes for Communism that the resolve of some Party members began to wane. Capitalists and neo-liberals of all hues had always been unhappy with the ANC/SACP/USSR/Socialist axis. While this could be tolerated during the struggle, the neo-liberal agenda could not encourage a free South Africa on an anti-capitalist path, with a strong socialist oriented ANC allied to the SACP. After the 1994 euphoria the liberal tendencies re-emerged and the 'struggle for the soul' of the ANC intensified within and outside the Alliance. So began the erosion of the people driven programme with, first, the marginalisation and finally the collapse of the RDP. Thus emerged GEAR and the ANC versus the SACP/COSATU tensions threatening the existence of the Alliance and the NDR. So arose the "1996 class project", the struggle against which the SACP would immerse itself almost to the destruction of its vanguard role.

Hopefully the Party has learnt that, despite many challenges and internal weaknesses, it has to remain resolute against capitalism and neo-liberal agendas and continue to be the most independent, ideologically relevant, disciplined and stable formation if socialism is to be achieved in South Africa.

The neo-liberal tendency is rearing its ugly head again inspired by the triple fold crisis of poverty, unemployment and inequality to which can be added the intensification of patriarchy as witnessed with the GBV pandemic and COVID19.

This pro-capitalist tendency within and outside the ANC has remerged with its old song of "there is no alternative/TINA" to capitalism. We are told South Africa has to opt for "capitalism with a conscience or humane face", essentially that a "benevolent capitalism", will extricate us from the crisis.

After all, it is argued, the ANC has identified the patriotic black bourgeoisie as one of the motive forces for the NDR and so we might as well complete the capitalist path by not only deracialising but also "conscientising" capitalism. The SACP has to mobilise the working class, socialist and progressive forces to not only explode the myth of humane capitalism but to fight for its destruction.

In its 100 years of existence the Party has played a critical role in the Continent on the side of most progressive forces and as part of the Africa Communist movement. Its publications such as The African Communist were central to debates about the road to Communism and the building of "African Socialism" attempted in countries such as Tanzania, Mozambique etc.

The African Women's movement has made great advances but needs revolutionary alliances and continuous engagements especially as there is a proliferation of all kinds of "feminism". The African youth are in desperate need of solid ideological support. It is therefore important that the SACP sharpens its leadership capacity to be able to strengthen the Continent's progressive movement, which is facing tremendous challenges. The Party has to build and strengthen relations with a broad array of progressive and socialist forces in the Continent such as the African Left Networking Forum (ALNEF) and others. Once again "communists to the front"!

Progressive and socialist thought and practice is gaining traction in many countries internationally. In Spain, for instance, the coalition of the Spanish Socialist and Workers Party (PSOE) and Podemos, another socialist group, have established a relatively progressive government, introducing socialist policies. In the U.S. inroads are made in altering the status quo of bipolar politics. The marginalised masses and the working class in Latin America, Asia, etc. are braving police harassment and intimidation and showing that the "Big-Man" nationalist and right wing demagoguery trend can be contested through sustained mass mobilisation of the working class.

The SACP has to draw lessons from its traditional allies such as Cuba, China and Vietnam who have stood firm in consolidating their own unique socialist projects. The SACP must salute President Ramaphosa's government for its nomination of the Cuba Health Brigade for the Nobel peace prise. Cuba's solidarity is the mainstay of internationalism and "communists to the front' ethos.

One hundred fighting years in the struggle against oppression and exploitation is a significant milestone. Let the Party maintain its principled trajectory in safeguarding the interests of the poor, the downtrodden, women and youth, those in vulnerable rural and urban settings by reinjecting energy into building our future socialist project and making sure that we place people and human life before profit. The domestic and international environment including COVID19 is offering an opportunity for the communists to move to the front.

Cde Mtintso is a veteran SACP and ANC activist, former ANC Deputy Secretary General and MK combatant.

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Chinese and South African Parties Turn 100

Yunus Carrim

Founded just a week apart in 1921, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on 23 July and the South African Communist Party (SACP) on 30 July, the two parties will have several joint activities to celebrate our centenary year. The first of these was a joint seminar from 2 to 4 February. A brief overview of the webinar is offered here, with the focus more on the CCP inputs (with the qualification that some of the points made below may not be nuanced enough presentations of what was said in the translation from Chinese).

Speaking for the SACP, the First Deputy General Secretary, Cde Solly Mapaila, said that the two parties have a special bond because they were both born in July 1921. He said that both Parties had sought to develop their theories and strategies based on a "concrete analysis of concrete conditions". The CPC believes that it is in the "primary stages of socialism" and building "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics". And the SACP saw apartheid South Africa as a "Colonialism of a Special Type" and has waged a struggle through working in an alliance with the ANC and Cosatu to advance, deepen and defend the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) as the most direct route to socialism.

The CPC delegation felt that the centenary year of both Parties should be used to strengthen Party-to-Party cooperation. "We look forward to deepening exchanges and mutual learning." It was stressed that "party development and self-improvement is crucial" and "if a 100 year-old Party wants to remain young like the rising sun, you have to be theoretically innovate". The CPC's focus is on the "localisation and modernisation of Marxism".

The CPC delegation pointed out that Cde Mao had in the 1950s stressed the need to support national liberation in South Africa.

The Chinese Communist Party's Experience

It was explained that the CCP's history could be divided into 3 three broad stages:

1. From 1921: The CCP waged a struggle for national liberation and socialism against the semi-colonial regime.

2. From 1949: The new national democratic revolution began. China's "path to revolution was complex and unique". It was "economically and culturally quite backward, and different from what Marx had in mind of countries in which socialism would take place". The focus of the CPC was "building the base of a national economic system, with emphasis on heavy industry".

3.From 1978: The focus has been on the "reform and opening up" of the economy to rapidly develop the productive forces, with an emphasis on "technological growth and industrialisation" and building "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics'" The "only way we could say goodbye to the past created by the colonisers was to rapidly industrialise the society."

China is in the "primary stage of socialism" which will last for a long time. It has introduced elements ofa market economy and encouraged foreign investment to increase productivity and economic growth to serve the people as a whole.

"Our main goal was to build a moderately prosperous society. We had to answer the people's call to live a happy life" By the beginning of the 21th century "our goal was achieved" and "poverty is becoming a thing of the past."

In 2002 the CPC decided that the new goal is to achieve a moderately prosperous society in all respects. "People have satisfied their material needs, they now have new expectations about their spiritual life, and the CPC must respond to this. We have to have a people-centred philosophy." It was said that "all the people need to live beyond the minimum standards, and this must be in all areas. Beyond just material advances, people also want democracy, culture, a harmonious society and to live in an ecological civilisation".

In 2012, "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" entered a new era - the modernisation of socialism, with a more balanced version of growth." The focus now is on the "quality of development, with development being shared by all. There is a move from basic needs to quality life for the people. "Supply side structural reforms" are being increasingly introduced to "stimulate domestic demand and consumption."

However, in recent years, there is "a new normal in China's economic development. There is weaker momentum to economic growth compared to the past. Under new circumstances China cannot be judged on GDP alone, and there is a need for innovative developments to share growth with the less advantaged."

Internally, China is facing complex economic changes and has to meet peoples increasing demand for a better life. China's imbalanced and inadequate development remains a challenge. There are now "more arduous tasks and complex problems" to attend to.

"The world is also facing changes unseen in over a century. The future is uncertain. There is also now a more diversified global economic order."

However, in this new era "there are new opportunities and new challenges and a crisis can be turned into opportunities."

There was a brief focus on "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era".

Elsewhere it was noted that Xi Jinping Thought is underpinned by a long-term two-stage development plan: a focus from 2020 to 2035 on socialist modernisation, including the achievement of the Belt and Road Initiative; and from 2035 to 2050 on developing China into a modern socialist country that is "prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful".

Further "opening up" is planned with a greater emphasis on "competitive globalisation, market-based interest and exchange rates, and greater market access with the protection of foreign investors' interests and rights"... greater law-based governance in compliance with the constitution, tackling corruption more effectively and ensuring "ecological management and protection of natural ecosystems".

The 14 principles of Xi Thought include: strengthening the Party's role; committing to a "people-centred approach"; deepening reform; a "new vision for development"; law-based governance; "seeing that the people run the country"; upholding core socialist values; improving living standards; ensuring "harmony between humans and nature"; a "holistic approach to security"; ensuring "absolute Party leadership over the people's forces"; the principle of "one country, two systems" and promoting national reunification; the building of "a community with a shared future for humanity'; and "full and rigorous governance over the Party".

Asked what the difference between Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and state capitalism is, it was said that what underpinned the Chinese approach is "scientific socialism". The CCP, not a capitalist party, is in control and oversees the process. The focus has been to develop the productive forces, not in the interest of a minority, but to benefit people generally and to achieve "common prosperity". Importantly, "public ownership is dominant and the dominant method of distribution is according to work." Moreover, this public ownership is over key sites of the economy. "We only use elements of the market and capitalism to provide for resource allocation to grow the productive forces" in the interests of the people. "We couldn't use the Soviet Union approach, we're a different country, with different conditions, in a different era…. Socialism should not be dogmatised."

The post-1978 period is likened to the adoption of the 1920s New Economic Policy of the Soviet Union through which market reforms were introduced while retaining state-ownership of the commanding heights of the economy and ensuring that the growth advanced the struggle for socialism.

The SACP's experience

Cde Mapaila explained that for the most part the SACP saw its struggle in terms of two stages: initially achieving the NDR and thereafter more directly striving for socialism.

He drew attention to the roots of this in the 1928 Comintern "Black Republic-cum-Workers' and Peasants' Republic Thesis" expressed in the resolution:

…the Communist Party of South Africa must combine the fight against all anti-native laws with the general political slogan in the fight against British domination, the slogan of an independent native South African republic as a stage towards a workers' and peasants' republic, with full equal rights for all races, black, coloured and white.

"While refining the application of Marxism-Leninism based on a concrete analysis of South Africa's concrete conditions", noted Cde Mapaila, "the SACP shifted from ….the premise of the so-called two-stage theory. Thenceforth we put forward the strategic theme, 'Socialism is the Future - Build it now'". He said that deepening the national democratic revolution offered the most direct route to socialism "under South Africa's historical conditions. However, for us to reach that correct destination, the SACP had to see intensifying the struggle for socialism in the here and now as its immediate task."

He said "we attach great importance to measures that aim to build momentum towards, capacity for, and the elements of socialism as an immediate task within the framework of the national democratic revolution - with the aim of guiding it to its logical conclusion. The revolutionary essence of national democratic revolutionary measures lies in their socialist orientation."

The SACP supports the 1955 Freedom Charter that is aimed to advance the NDR and "while the national democratic revolution and socialism are distinct, they are however interrelated and mutually reinforcing."

Cde Mapaila referred to the SACP's "South African Road to Socialism" and the Medium Term Vision based on Marxism-Leninism and "rooted deeply in our history and conditions".

"We are building socialism from the womb of capitalism as you are building elements of capitalism in the womb of socialism."

Cde Mapaila referred to the crisis in global capitalism, the increasing rise of conservatism and the "so-called trade wars it has unleashed against China as a way to divert the competitive edge of China on the development of the scientific and digital instruments of production" - and the need for Communist Parties to fight against this.

Taking the exchanges Forward

The exchanges between the Chinese and South African Communist Parties will continue over the Centenary Year and will take a variety of different forms.

Of course, the webinar covered here is only the first of several planned. In the webinar, most of the CCP's inputs focused on the post 1949 period. There was not enough discussion on the history of the CCP's struggle for national liberation until then. Key issues about the post-1949 period were not covered adequately, such as the lessons from the 'Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution", and there needs to be more discussion on how China is addressing inequalities, climate change, internal democracy and its tensions with some of the regions. These issues will hopefully be covered in future exchanges.

China has had an unprecedented average 10% GDP growth in over 40 years! Despite Covid, China grew by 2,3% last year and is expected to grow by 8,1% this year. China is the second largest economy in the world and is poised to become the largest. Not just Communist Parties, but all political parties and other key organisations need to consider the 100-year history of the CCP, where China is today and where it is likely to go, and draw lessons from the strengths and weaknesses of this history and contemporary developments in China. All indications are that the years ahead will see a fundamental change in the world order.

Cde Carrim is an SACP Politburo and Central Committee member, a Co-Editor of Umsebenzi and an MP.

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26th annual commemoration of Joe Slovo's passing

Dr Blade Nzimande

Joe Slovo dedicated his entire life from the young age of 16 to the cause of liberation, and social emancipation of the working-class. This for him included ending male domination and oppression of women and girls - that is patriarchy - and building a non-sexist society. Slovo's dedication to the transformation of South Africa to become a non-racial and non-sexist democratic and prosperous society did not end with his death, however. In celebrating his life, we commit to pursue this struggle further. Slovo was a scientific socialist. To continue his legacy, we need to intensify the struggle for socialism and unite the working-class for the final victory towards complete liberation and social emancipation.

Slovo's choice of the Avalon Cemetery as his place of burial was part of his commitment to break the barriers of racial segregation even in his death. One of the largest graveyards in South Africa, Avalon Cemetery is in Soweto, the largest township in the country, now home to over one million people.

When he was 15 years old, Slovo left school to look for work. He was compelled to do so by his working-class and poor background. That was when his lifelong contribution to the struggle of workers' rights, the struggle for liberation and democracy began.

When he was 16, Slovo was elected a shop steward of the National Union of Distributive Workers. He became involved in leading a strike that won workers' demands, but he was gravely disturbed when Black workers were excluded from benefitting from the gains of that action. The same year, 1942, he joined the Communist Party to wage the struggle against the racist, capitalist, colonial regime. He remained unquestionably loyal to the struggle for over five decades from 1942 until his death on 6 January 1995.

At Wits university Slovo where he met his first wife, Ruth, a communist cadre in her own right, and Nelson Mandela as students. Slovo excelled, winning himself a degree in law. He started working as a lawyer, with more focus on defending the stalwarts of our struggle, after obtaining his law degree.

Slovo was one of the key leaders of our struggle, a great theoretician, strategist, and tactician. He was involved not only in intellectual activity but also in the realm of practical action to change the world for the better. He was a founder member of the Congress of Democrats following the banning of the Communist Party under the "Suppression of Communism Act, 1950". Together with his wife, Ruth, daughter of the SACP National Treasurer, Julius First, and Matilda (neé Levetan), Slovo was among the first to be banned under the draconian legislation.

As a communist cadre, then functioning in the underground organisation of the SACP but active in the Congress of Democrats, Slovo took part in the drafting of the Freedom Charter. Following the adoption of the Freedom Charter he was arrested, together with 155 other comrades, for the role he played.

During their trial, Slovo simultaneously formed part of the defence legal team. The charges against him and several others were dropped in 1958 and for the rest of the accused in 1961. That was however short-lived because Slovo and others were arrested during the state of emergency declared by the apartheid regime after the Sharpeville massacre of 21 March 1960.

When the joint SACP and ANC military wing uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) was formed in 1961 Slovo, together with Mandela co-founded its High Command, with the SACP headquarters at Liliesleaf Farm as the operations centre. When the apartheid regime arrested our stalwarts at Liliesleaf Farm, leading to the Rivonia Treason Trial between 1963 and 1964, Slovo was on an external mission. He had to remain in forced exile for 27 years performing SACP, ANC and MK work.

Slovo formed part of the Revolutionary Council established after the ANC Morogoro Consultative Conference where the first Strategy and Tactics was adopted. He formed part of the Politico-Military Council that replaced the Revolutionary Council in 1983 made up of leaders drawn from the ANC, SACP and the South African Congress of Trade Unions, SACTU. Two years later, in 1985, he was elected as the first white person to serve on the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC). The same year he became the MK Chief of staff and the following year the SACP General Secretary. He was succeeded by Chris Hani in both the two roles respectively in 1987 and 1991.

At our first Congress back in South Africa in 1991, Slovo was elected as the National Chairperson of the SACP. Following our first democratic election in 1994, President Nelson Mandela appointed Slovo, who was elected as a Member of Parliament, to serve as the first Minister of Housing in the democratic dispensation. Slovo served our people with great dedication in the three roles - as the SACP National Chairperson, ANC National Executive Committee Member and Member of Parliament, as he had in all his previous roles, until his death on 6 January 1995.

Slovo was also a key player in our transition to democracy. He was a key negotiator and participant, representing the SACP, in the negotiations principally between our movement and the apartheid regime and in the multi-party talks that led to the 1994 democratic breakthrough.

This year also marks the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party in July 1921. We are indeed commemorating Slovo's passing under vastly different conditions. Today we face new challenges and multiple crises of the global capitalist system. We are called upon to rise to the occasion.

The fourfold crises of the capitalist system

We are in the midst of the second surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is rising with a massive devastation on life and the economy.

We express our heartfelt condolences all the families that lost their loved ones due to COVID-19. We also salute all our frontline workers in the healthcare sector, including those who have lost their own lives in the course of duty saving the lives of our people. We salute also all those workers in essential services who have risked infection to service the people, including police, teachers, and workers in the security industry

The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened the pre-existing economic crisis of the capitalist system. The social indicators of the endemic crisis of the capitalist system include the persisting high levels of inequality, unemployment, and poverty.
Accompanying the worsening economic crisis are the multiple crises of social reproduction, affecting millions of poor and working-class families struggling to make ends meet, including very high levels of interpersonal violence in society. The pandemic of gender-based violence that our country is experiencing is also located at the heart of the crisis of social reproduction.

Another major crisis caused by the patterns of capitalist production and consumption is the catastrophic crisis of climate change, global warming, and environmental degradation.

What is to be done?

Like Joe Slovo, we must consistently strive to Put People First, before and above profit. This is a key task the SACP Central Committee identified in December 2020 at its plenary to guide the Party's programme of action in this year of our centenary.

To succeed, the theme Put People First - Batho Pele needs the people at its centre, mobilised in action to achieve a change for the better. This is also why we refer to this year of the SACP centenary as the Year of Mass Activism by the working-class and poor to put people before profits in defence of humanity.

However, we cannot go back to where we were before COVID-19. We cannot do things and mobilise in old ways in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the other interrelated crises of the capitalist system. We need to forge alternative forms of mass mobilisation and mass activism, considering not only the COVID-19 pandemic but also the other crises of the capitalist system. We have to find new and creative ways to do intense work amongst the people.

COVID-19 is the immediate threat to all South Africans and every person in South Africa needs to unite to overcome as a matter of urgency. We therefore reiterate our support for the COVID-19 preventative measures announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 28 December 2020. We call upon every person and family in South Africa to adhere to the COVID-19 preventative regulations.

The SACP also commits to play its part in forging a broad global left campaign for the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. This campaign must seek to challenge the dominant profit logic driven by big pharmaceutical companies. In the same vein, we want to welcome the stance by the World Health Organisation to make the COVID-19 vaccine a global public good, rather than a profit driven imperative. In our country the government should ensure that the production and/or sourcing of the COVID-19 vaccine is not subordinated to private wealth accumulation interests.

There must be no space left to corruption and state capture, old or new, in the sourcing of the COVID-19 vaccine, as in every government programme, department and public entity.

We reiterate our support for the progressive thrust of the government's Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan supported by the labour and community constituencies at the National Economic Development and Labour Council, and broadly by the working-class and other progressive strata and formations. Continuing consultation to strengthen the economic reconstruction and recovery plan is essential. That should include adopting targets to reduce inequality, unemployment, and poverty.

We underline the importance of financial sector transformation. This should include prescribed investment and building a developmental banking sector and a thriving co-operative banking sector. We will continue to campaign for the diversification of the financial sector generally, and the banking sector in particular. Our banking system must also include a strong and dynamic public banking sector and a cooperative banking sector.

The SACP also supports the correct focus on infrastructure development as a cornerstone in the economic reconstruction and recovery strategy. In fact, the resources, in particular public resources, allocated to infrastructure development need to be increased. However, we strongly caution against the financialisation of infrastructure development and other problematic methods of finance that advance the neoliberal privatisation agenda.

In the same vein, we wish to caution against neoliberalism and its agenda of austerity, which involves budgetary cuts badly affecting social spending and other development objectives of our country. South Africa's economic reconstruction, recovery and development is stifled by at least two factors, on the one hand neoliberalism and its austerity agenda and on the other hand state capture and other forms of corruption.

Prescribed investment must be pursued and unlock the trillions of rand accumulated from our economy but held in liquid cash in what is tantamount to an investment strike primarily by the financial sector. It is important to bring finance capital under democratic discipline in the public interest to meet our national development goals. To this end, engagements underpinned by democratic state authority are also crucial.

Today we are also officially launching, together with the Joe Slovo foundation, the White Ribbon Campaign against sexual harassment and all other forms of gender-based violence. Our revolution will not be complete without gender transformation and universal social emancipation. The law and its enforcement must be strengthened within the framework of human rights to end gender-based violence.

We also express our solidarity with the people of Swaziland struggling for democracy, the people of Zimbabwe in the face of the monumental crisis in that country, the people of Western Sahara and Palestine against occupation by Morocco and the apartheid Israeli regime respectively, and the people of Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, to name but a few faced with heightening imperialist aggression. The SACP stands with the oppressed and the exploited in every situation involving the oppressor and the oppressed and the exploiter and the exploited.

Cde Nzimande is the SACP General Secretary and Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology

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SACP needs to join White Ribbon Campaign

Martin Dolny

Cde Joe Slovo was occasionally prone to forgetting his daughter's birthday during the stress-full days of exile but one particular year he did remember and so dutifully sent her a birthday card with the inscription inside "congratulations to both of us - congratulations to you on your birthday and congratulations to me for remembering".

As so we celebrate 100 years of the SACP, we should remember to congratulate each other on our many successes, most notably the downfall of Apartheid, for whilst areas of racism still exist in South Africa, there can be no doubt that South Africa today is a far less racist and a far more multi-cultural society than countries such as USA, UK and most European countries, thanks to the actions and campaigning of the SACP

Despite the spurious claims of some about peaceful transitions of power, the truth is that throughout history the world over the big steps forward by the working class and the poor have always come about as a direct result of positive action by those at the forefront of the working class and the poor. Examples include the famous strike in England in 1968 by 50 female machinists at the Form Motor Company in the UK that was made into the award-winning movie "Made in Dagenham" which directly led to the Equal Pay Act in 1970.The story of Selma, Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement in America was ignited by the refusal to accept segregation by a poor black woman, Rosa Parks, who to use her own words (and not unlike Cde JS) had a 'life history of being rebellious'

It was the direct action, campaigning resistance and education led by a cadre from the SACP who's being referred to here? and its partners meaning? ANC & Cosatu? both in South Africa and globally that not only disabled apartheid but changed the attitudes and beliefs of the of those that supported apartheid directly and indirectly - which we should celebrate.

But as we celebrate, we should remind ourselves that what worked for us before is what we need to do again in order bring about an end to Gender Based Violence and abuse in South Africa and to create a gender equal society. As Nelson Mandela said, "Freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression".

Gender Based Violence is both a cause and an effect of gender inequality. Countries such as New Zealand and Finland, for example, are according to the World Economic Forum (WEF) among the most gender equal countries, and as a consequence have very low rates of GBV and abuse. They are also, according to the WEF, countries most likely to be able to deliver on the promise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution for all of society, and grow their economies for greater shared prosperity. Coincidentally, they happen to be both led by females and are top of the league for managing the Covid pandemic.

There is something that the social scientists call the "pyramid of discrimination and violence" when it comes to racism and GBV and that starts off at the bottom of the pyramid with the attitudes and beliefs that we often inherit. It moves through to subtle verbal discrimination such as racist jokes or sexist comments. Then up the pyramid it goes to physical and sexual assault, domestic abuse and ultimately ends up with homicide and femicide.

Similarly, there is something called the 3-4-50 framework that health services all over the world refer to - that over 50% of deaths, and 50% of hospital of medical costs etc comes from four diseases, diabetes, cancer, heart and lungs. These diseases come from smoking, unhealthy diet and lack of exercises. Change these three behaviours they say, and you create a much healthier and far richer society.

It is no coincidence that the British are the most obese nation in Europe (now we know "who ate the pork pies" )and yet despite the renowned National Health Service, Britain also has the highest death toll rate from Covid in Europe.

GBV and abuse are not just South African issues - like racism and Covid and corruption, they are global issues. But behaviour and attitudes can be changed. There are police-run programmes around the world that domestic violence abusers go on, including some that the white ribbon programmes originate from. Over 80% of the attendees do NOT re-offend, which proves even those near the top of the pyramid can learn better ways. In over 60 countries around the globe there are White Ribbon Programmes which are successfully changing behaviour and attitudes, improving gender equality and reducing violence against women and girls.

The SACP posture against interpersonal and gender-based violence in particular has led it to a partnership with the Joe Slovo Foundation and Cosatu to drive the White Ribbon SA campaign. Powered by the Joe Slovo Foundation, the goal is that through education, awareness-raising, outreach, technical assistance, capacity building, and partnerships, White Ribbon South Africa will challenge and overcome the negative, outdated concepts of manhood and inspire all South Africans (men, boys, women and girls) to understand and embrace the incredible potential they have to be a part of positive change. Leaving behind the 'Apartheid man box attitudes and beliefs' eliminating gender-based violence and sexual harassment from the home, school, workplace and community.

We are therefore especially calling on all SACP PB members and Provincial Secretaries and YCLSA national office bearers and provincial secretaries to stand up and speak out by taking the pledge to "STAND UP, SPEAK OUT - Never Commit or Condone Violence and Abuse against Women and Girls". This requires each cadre to go to the Joe Slovo Foundation website on https://whiteribbon.org.za/take-the-pledge to complete the on-line form.

When you take the pledge to support White Ribbon South Africa the Joe Slovo Foundation will then keep you updated with information on how to:

• Listen properly to women.
• Reflect on and change our behaviour.
• Disrupt others violence and abuse towards women and girls
• Treat women as equals.
• Talk to others about breaking out of the Apartheid Man Box.
• Think about how women and girls are portrayed in the media.
• Talk with friends, family and colleagues about respectful relationships and pornography.

The next step is to become a White Ribbon Advocate which means completing the e-Learning programme about the roots of gender-based violence and abuse against women and girls, and how you can combat these in everyday life utilising the White Ribbon Primary Prevention Programmes that the Joe Slovo Foundation has modified for South Africa
As advocates of the White Ribbon Campaign, we would expect active support to the roll out of the primary prevention programmes, within the Party, within fraternal organisations, within your place of deployment or work, schools and universities and through broad fronts in the community - encouraging your comrades and friends to also join the White Ribbon Campaign.

This means placing violence and abuse against women and girls on the agenda of workplace negotiations, for example, and going to your HR manager and pushing that White Ribbon type education programmes should be included in employee induction programmes and part of regular annual employee assessments just as health and safety and cyber security policies are - and that they become a 'White Ribbon Accredited Workplace'

This also means when nominating persons for election in your branch, or community, such as your councillor, that you do not deem them worthy of election if they have not signed the pledge - after all you would not elect a racist councillor so why elect a sexist one? And it means being brave enough to tell your friends that they are wrong when they say that she "is asking for it" - because she is wearing a short skirt.

It means going to teachers and lecturers and asking for White ribbon programmes to be included in the curriculum and that they become a 'White Ribbon school / university / college' campaigning for zero tolerance of gender in-equality.
Let us congratulate ourselves on the 100th Anniversary of the SACP and follow the lead of the late GS, Joe Slovo, by standing up, speaking out, taking action, campaign, resist and educate, starting with the White Ribbon Pledge and signing on to become a White Ribbon Advocate.

We can bring an end to GBV and abuse just as we brought an end to Apartheid.

Cde Dolny is the Director of the Joe Slovo Foundation

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National Immunisation in Cuba

Cuba's National Immunisation Program (PNI) was created in 1962, has national reach and has five levels of organisation: Central, Provincial, Municipal Level, Health Area and Family Physician's Office. It is based on four basic principles: aimed at the entire Cuban population, integrated into Primary Health Care (APS), with active community participation in vaccination tasks and with totally free access.

This Program ensures that vaccination is one of the most effective ways to prevent communicable infectious diseases. National Immunisation Scheme coverage reaches more than 98% nationwide. On average, 4,800,000 doses of simple or combined vaccines are administered annually, protecting against 13 preventable diseases, including a pentavalent of which its five components are domestically produced. Since 2004 all vaccines used in the vaccination scheme have been domestically produced with the exception of triple viral vaccine (PRS), polio (oral and parenteral) and BCG (against severe forms of tuberculosis) imported, a total of eight vaccines are manufactured in Cuba. Since the introduction of new formulations manufactured in Cuba, the National Immunisation Scheme is structured with combined and individual vaccines for first doses and reactivations from birth.

Vaccines are not only limited to children, but are also given to risk groups: seasonal influenza (over 65 years and groups selected annually), leptospirosis, typhoid fever, hepatitis b, tetanus and yellow fever.

The organisation and functioning of the PNI, through systematic and sustained vaccination over time, has had a decisive impact on the health indicators of the Cuban population, evidenced in the elimination of six immunopreventible diseases: polio (1962), diphtheria (1979), measles (1993), rubella (1995), mumps (1995) and tospherine (1997), and four complications or serious forms: TB meningitis (1962), neonatal tetanus (1972), postparotiditis meningitis (1989) and congenital rubella syndrome (1989). They are also kept under controlled at rates of less than 0.1 per 10,000 inhabitants, so they are not a health problem: haemophilus influensae type B meningitis, hepatitis B, meningococcal meningitis and tetanus, among other diseases.

On the existing structure and with the experience gained in the implementation of the PNI, the Surveillance System of Consecutive Adverse Events to Vaccination and Immunisation (ESAVI) created in 1999 is implemented that allows the timely analysis of these events and their results contribute to the decision-making of the PNI taking immediate control measures and actions to minimize risks; it has universal coverage, the ability to be exempt and behave like an active surveillance system for real-time surveillance from the introduction of new vaccines.

All of these results have been supported by the Center for State Control of Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices (CECMED), Cuba's National Regulatory Authority, which analyses, evaluates and releases every batch of vaccine used in the country, whether domestically produced or imported. CECMED has been part of the Vaccine Quality Control Network since 1994, has its Quality Management System certified since 2008 by the National Bureau of Standardisation of Cuba (ONN) and the Spanish Agency for Standardisation (AENOR) according to ISO 9001 of 2015, since 2000 certified by WHO as a National Reference Authority for vaccines and since 2010 Reference Regulatory Authority for the Americas with level IV certified PAHO.

Cuba currently has four vaccine candidates in different phases of clinical trials against the Sars-Cov2 Virus: SOBERANA 01, SOBERANA 02, MAMBISA and ABDALA.

Total de dosis aplicadas según tipo de vacuna y fecha de inicio. 1962-2019

Tipo de vacuna	Fecha de inicio (Esquema nacional de vacunación)	Total de dosis aplicadas
Toxoide tetánico (TT)	1963	91 890 602
Antipoliomielítica oral (OPV)	1962	86 083 076
Antitifoídica (AT)	1963	42 936 433
Triple bacteriana (DPT)	1963	32 682 071
Duple bacteriana (DT)	1963	14 548 907
Hepatitis B (HBV)	1992	14 595 473
BCG	1963	13 843 320
Antimeningocócica (Tipo BC)	1988	13 866 399
Triple viral (PRS)	1986	8 757 498
Haemophilus influenzae (Hib)	1999	5 596 145
Pentavalente (DPT+HB+Hib)	2006	5 022 137
Antipoliomielítica inactivada (IPV)	2016	677 817

Nota: La tetravalente (DPT+ HB) se aplicó del 2005 al 2007 (439 799 total de dosis aplicadas)

Esquema oficial de vacunación infantil, Cuba, 2017

Vacuna	Protege contra	Fecha de inicio de la dosis				Dosis (No.)	Volumen de dosis (ml)	Vía de administra ción	Región anatómica de aplicación	Lugar de aplicación
		Primera	Segunda	Tercera	Reactivación
B.C.G.	Formas graves de la tuberculosis	24 horas	-	-	-	1	0,05	ID	Deltoides Izquierdo	Maternidad
Hepatitis B*	Hepatitis B	24 horas	-	-	-	1	0,5	IM	1/3 M CALM	Maternidad
Heberpenta-L (D.P.T, HB, Hib):	Difteria, tosferina, tétanos, hepatitis B y Haemophilus Influenzae b	2M	4M	6M		3	0,5	IM	1/3 M CALM	Policlínico
DwP.T	Difteria, tosferina y tétanos	-	-	-	18M	1	0,5	IM	1/3 M CALM	Policlínico
Quimi -Hib.	Enfermedades por Haemophilus Influenzae b	-	-	-	18M	1	0,5	IM	1/3 M CALM	Policlínico
Va-mengoc-BC	Enfermedades por meningococo B y C	3M	5M	-	-	2	0,5	IM	1/3 M CALM	Policlínico
PRS	Parotiditis, rubéola y sarampión	12M	-	-	6A	2	0,5	SC	Deltoides	Policlínico y Escuela
DT	Difteria y tétanos	-	-	-	6A	1	0,5	IM	Deltoides	Escuela
Vax Tyvi:	Fiebre tifoidea	10A	-	-	13 y 16A	3	0,5	IM	Deltoides	Escuela
TT	Tétanos	-	-	-	14A	1	0,5	IM	Deltoides	Escuela
IPV	Poliomielitis	4M	-	-	-	1	0,5	IM	1/3 M CALM	Policlínico
OPVb	Poliomielitis	Campañas anuales de vacunación						oral		Policlínico

*El hijo de madre positiva al antígeno de superficie de la Hepatitis B tiene otro esquema de vacunación: recibirá cuatro dosis de vacuna, al nacer, al primer mes, al segundo mes y al año. El resto de las vacunas se administran conforme al esquema de vacunación mostrado.
ID = intradérmica.
IM = intramuscular.
SC = subcutánea.
1/3 M CALM= tercio medio de la cara anterolateral del muslo

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Editor-in-chief

Dr Blade Nzimande

Deputy editors-in-chief

Solly Mapaila
Chris Matlhako

Co-editors

Yunus Carrim
Jeremy Cronin

Deputy editors

Buti Manamela
Jenny Schreiner

Design & production

Tony Sutton
Sub-editors
David Niddrie
Mark Waller

Other board members

Joyce Moloi
Celiwe Madlopha
Reneva Fourie
Alex Mashilo
Malesela Maleka
Tinyiko Ntini