Red Alert

LET US GO BACK TO BASICS BUT COME BACK MOST ADVANCED

SACP Statement delivered by 2nd Deputy General Secretary, Comrade Solly Mapaila on the occasion of the 19th Anniversary Commemoration of the passing of Joe Slovo

Soweto, Avalon Cemetery - Monday, 6 January 2014

Cde Nomonde Rasmeni, a member of our Central Committee (CC), and other members of the CC and the Politburo present;

Provincial leaders of our Party from Gauteng, Free State, North West and other provinces;

SACP leaders from districts and branches;

Leaders and members of our Young Communist League, led by the National Secretary comrade Buti Manamela, who is also a member of our Central Committee; 

Leaders from our trade union movement as led by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and all members from COSATU affiliates present;

Leaders and comrades from the African National Congress, the ANC, led by comrade David Makhura;

Let us also take this opportunity to thank comrade Makhura, who apologised from the African National Congress (ANC) National Executive Committee (NEC) currently in session in Mpumalanga Province so he could start with us here;

We appreciate the effort, because we know it is very difficult to apologise from the NEC;

Veterans and stalwarts of our liberation movement, we are proud that you are here with us, our movement was built by your sweat, blood and sacrifices.

Dear comrades and friends,

As usual this year we are again joined on the occasion of the 19th Anniversary Commemoration of the passing away of comrade Joe Slovo, also by comrades from international organisations.

From the Free Abdullah Öcalan Campaign, we have comrade Havin Guneser, a member of the Kurdish liberation forces. Comrade Havin is living in exile, because she is stateless. It is a great injustice that a nation of over 50 million, the Kurdish people, has no state in the modern era

Other nations that are in a similar situation but in a slightly different context are the people of Palestine in the same region of the Middle East, and the people of Western Sahara in Africa.

While having a semi-state institution - the Palestinian Authority, the people of Palestine have no state of their own. Israel is occupying and continuously expands settlements in their land.

Morocco is occupying the territory of Western Sahara.

A common thread in all of these injustices is that the immediate oppressors are backed by powerful imperialist forces, who constitute the ultimate oppressors. 

From Zimbabwe we are joined by comrade Ian Bedowels, and other comrades from the liberation forces, Zimbabwe African People`s Union (ZAPU) and the Communist League.

From Swaziland and the Swaziland Solidarity Network, we are joined by comrade Borman and other comrades who are in exile in South Africa, because they are still fighting for their own freedom in the nearby Swaziland.

BACK TO BASICS, BUILDING REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM

Our message on this occasion marking the 19th Anniversary Commemoration of the passing of comrade Joe Slovo is anchored around our theme and programme titled `Back to Basics`. This is not a step backwards. It is a step forward. We must go back to basics; but when we come back we must be the most advanced and resolute; we must be the most active on a professional revolutionary basis; we must be steeled in a revolutionary theory, Marxism-Leninism; we must come back with augmented intellectual enlightenment, taking our cue from comrade Joe Slovo. 

At the time of his death, Slovo was SACP National Chairperson and Politburo Member. He was also a Member of the NEC and National Working Committee (NWC) of the ANC.

Motivated by what he identified as the immediate chief target - the removal of the racist regime and attainment of power for the people, Slovo joined the Communist Party at the age of 16, in 1942. Slovo advanced academic development, becoming a lawyer, despite the fact that he was actively involved in the liberation struggle and had to go to service in the Second World War against fascism.

The youth should take their cue from the revolutionary life of Slovo. The youth should, guided by a revolutionary theory, appreciate the importance of early involvement in the struggle to contest, shape and influence the direction of society. Like Slovo, they must advance in the sphere of education. All this should provide space and time for systematic development of a calibre of high quality cadres like Slovo.

Slovo was a founder member of the Congress of Democrats, which he represented in the National Consultative Committee of the Congress Alliance that drew up the Freedom Charter. But due to apartheid restrictions, he didn`t succeed to attend the Congress of the People - the genuine one - not some recent imitation. He had to watch the proceedings of the adoption of the Freedom Charter through binoculars from a distance. But contrary to what the racist regime wanted, Slovo never got demoralised. He did not demobilise. Instead, he stepped up revolutionary activity, intensified and deepened his involvement in bringing an end to the racist regime.   

A long standing member and leader of our alliance, an extra-ordinary revolutionary par excellence, Slovo participated in the founding and became one of the leaders of the people`s liberation army - Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), in 1961. MK Chief of Operations and Chief of Staff, a strategist and tactician, Slovo `planned and inspired`, as comrade Nelson Mandela said at his funeral service on 15 January 1995, `many special operations of the people`s army that shook the foundations of the apartheid establishment`.

Slovo played one of the crucial roles in the negotiations that contributed to the birth of our democracy after the unbanning of political parties, release of political prisoners and return from exile in 1990.

POWER, OUR ULTIMATE GOAL FOR THE FREE DEVELOPMENT OF ALL!

Slovo clearly understood that power in society is the subject of intense, constant and uninterrupted struggle between contending classes, between the oppressors and the oppressed. He clearly understood that the class that captures power in any key site of struggle wields that power in its own interests and has to be contested.

Born in Lithuania, his parents had to flee the country for South Africa when he was eight, because of the conditions that the class enemy creates when it is in charge of power or has influence. In South Africa, the systems of national oppression based on both external and internal colonialism as well as imperialism, gender domination and class exploitation, all of which Slovo fought against, added to his lived experiences in relation to what the class enemy does when it is in charge of power in society. This contributed to the factors that produced and moulded Slovo as an extra-ordinary revolutionary. 

Slovo understood that in any centre of power in society, where there is no contest against the class enemy; where there is, in other words, a free flow for the enemy; where there is a vacuum that allows the enemy to operate without any resistance or challenge, conditions become worse for the oppressed and the exploited. He clearly understood that the struggle for the realisation of complete freedom of our people from colonialism, apartheid, capitalist and in its advanced stage imperialist exploitation, as well as from all other forms of oppression, had to be carried out in all strategic centres of power, including the state.

In memory of Slovo, we must confront the political charlatans who have been trying by all means to co-opt and distort his contribution and works in our struggle in order to justify their deviationist tendencies. 

CONFRONT THE POLITICAL CHARLATANS

Claiming that they are the best examples of the revolutionary values that Slovo stood for, there are political charlatans, our detractors and renegades, who malign the SACP`s participation in our own ANC-led government and legislative bodies. This is absolutely anti-Slovo!

The fact is, whilst he was SACP National Chairperson and Politburo Member, as well as ANC NEC and NWC Member, Slovo simultaneously served as Minister of Housing in our Government of National Unity until his death. He never regarded serving in our Central Committee and Politburo, the ANC NEC and NWC, and in our ANC-led government, as selling out. Contrary to mobilising against participation in the leaderships of the SACP, ANC and ANC-led government, Slovo mobilised in favour of that participation.

The anti-Slovo political charlatans, our detractors and renegades, also claim that they are the best custodians of our Freedom Charter.

THE FREEDOM CHARTER IS OURS, NOT CHARLATANS'

The political charlatans fail to appreciate that it is the Freedom Charter that gives everyone, SACP members and leaders not excluded, the rights they were denied by colonial and apartheid oppression.

It is the Freedom Charter under the clarion call: `The people shall govern`, which in no uncertain terms states that `Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and to stand as a candidate for all bodies which make laws`. It is the Freedom Charter under the clarion call: `The people shall govern`, which in no uncertain terms states that `All people shall be entitled to take part in the administration of the country`.

Serving our people in our democratically elected government and legislative bodies, the right and government we have fought and campaigned for, represents the direct continuity of our revolution through governance as a new pillar of our struggle since 1994. This is anchored in the revolutionary duty to contest power in all key sites of struggle, guided by our strategic objective of building working class hegemony in all centres of power.

In defence of the legacy of Slovo, as communists we shall press ahead with the work he started, taking responsibility for the revolution and serving in our ANC-led government, when duty calls through democratic processes in our alliance and broader movement. We will go all out to wage a relentless war against the co-option of the Freedom Charter by anti-Freedom Charter opportunistic elements who have been campaigning to isolate and deny communists the exercise of the rights enshrined in the Freedom Charter.

NOT JUST A WORKER LEADER ONLY, BUT A WORKING CLASS LEADER

As a worker, Slovo joined the National Union of Distributive Workers, and later became one of its shop stewards. Slovo did not confine and limit working class leadership to trade unionism. Neither did he ever believe that if you are a worker leader in a trade union you must be prohibited to be a working class leader in society, in our movement, the ANC and the SACP.

It is important that we go back to basics. Without this there are possibilities that some might not understand the basic and fundamental questions of organisation in our movement.

We must therefore intensify and strengthen cadreship development, which is part and parcel of the process of organisational renewal. All our members in branches must undergo thoroughgoing political education and ideological training processes. If we don`t give enough attention to this question we will miss the opportunity to embolden the new generations of members and leaders with the values of our revolution.

Especially we could also lose to various deviationist tendencies some proportions of our members who joined some of our organisations or became leaders following unbanning. These are members who joined when our movement was about to ascend to political power in 1994. Ascension to power brought about new opportunities, but its own challenges as well, such as those that arise out of incumbency in governance and in positions of leadership in our very formations, including trade unions.

WHAT ARE OUR TASKS? LET US GO BACK TO BASICS

Party members

At the core of our programme to go back to basics is for members to understand each of our organisations that they belong to. If you are a member of the SACP, you must be inducted properly, to understand the Communist Manifesto for instance; to understand the state of the South African revolution; to understand the struggle for socialism; to understand capitalism, how it is organised and why it is exploitative; to also understand the role of workers in the broader national liberation and class struggles. In understanding that, you will then, similarly, understand the role of a trade union.

As a Party member at the workplace you must join and work inside of the trade union movement. Your work includes developing an understanding of the role of the worker inside the trade union movement, and in the broader national liberation and class struggles.

These are common basics, but which Slovo, this intellectual giant of our movement, wrote a seminal and insightful piece about, titled `The South African working class and the national democratic revolution`. In the intervention, Slovo clearly summarises the interrelationship between worker and the broader national and class struggles, and between the trade union movement, the Communist Party and the national liberation movement.

In our case, the progressive trade union movement is led by Cosatu. The Communist Party is leading the broader class struggle for socialism, and the ANC is leading our broader national liberation struggle. In this capacity, and given our elaboration and articulation of the interrelationship between the class content of our national struggle and the national content of our class struggle, the ANC is also leading the alliance between our independent formations, as well as our national liberation movement consisting of an array of mass democratic and revolutionary formations, including Cosatu and the SACP.

Steeled in clarity about these basics and the workings of our alliance, in particular the principle of dual membership, you will not be isolated as a communist in a branch of the ANC because members will know that your contribution is part and parcel of the national liberation struggle. Similarly, trade union members will not be isolated in a branch of the ANC. Neither will communists and ANC members be isolated in trade unions. Members in these formations will understand the role of communists and workers in the national liberation struggle and its interrelationship to worker and broader class struggles.

In the trade union movement

In trade unions, the primary function is to organise workers to be a single unit, to fight for rights at the workplace, the rights which we regard as bread and butter issues. These rights include better pay, better and safer working conditions, better employment conditions, medical care benefits, paid maternity leave for pregnant workers,  and so forth - in general, decent work. These are basic issues that workers fight for.

But at the same time workers must also protect other workers from exploitation by the capitalists. That is why we have shop stewards and officials in trade unions. Their role is to organise, represent and service workers, and protect them from the capitalists who exploit them. They have no mandate "to protect workers" from the national liberation movement fundamentally because, in the first place, workers are part and parcel of the national liberation movement. This is the common basic programme of workers.

Workers don`t need protection from themselves. Workers come from communities in the first instance. They can`t forgo political participation in their respective communities. In the same way as the progressive trade union movement as led by COSATU has not buried its head in the sand away from broader political struggles but is a partner in an alliance with the ANC and SACP which has extended to include SANCO, that is why workers must belong to the ANC, SACP, participate in SANCO and all other progressive and revolutionary community organisations. In this way, you should have a worker who is an embodiment of the entire revolutionary struggles of the working class. In simple terms, we can say this is the struggle to end all forms of oppression.

ANC cadres

The same goes for the ANC in terms of the back to basics programme. This will among others include making sure that the local government structures are fully functional and responsive to serve the needs of the people and are accountable; ward and street committees are well established and functional; community organisations to defend the people against crime and corruption are set up, working together with SANCO.

In doing so, we will integrate our common struggles for the national democratic revolution. This is the struggle to end all forms of oppression of black people in general and Africans in particular. It is the struggle to eliminate women`s domination, the struggle against patriarchy; and it is the struggle against class exploitation, which essentially is the struggle for socialism. This is the back to basics programme of the SACP.

We would like the `Back to Basics` programme to be embraced by our alliance partners in the ANC, COSATU and SANCO, so that all of us can embark on developing a new cadre who is fit to continue the struggle and take the baton of leadership from our stalwarts, Nelson Mandela, Crosby Moni, Joe Slovo and many other outstanding revolutionaries.

Reinvigorating our mandate

As the last point about the `Back to Basics` programme, it will reinvigorate our mandate as revolutionaries. It will explain why we are in our organisations, why we are called revolutionaries. What is the difference, for instance, between a member of the Communist Party and an ordinary resident in your street?

This is the common difference. A Party member is conscious about the needs of society, the need for transformation, the need to change the lives of the people, and is conscious about what the fundamental cause of the problems we seek to resolve is. A Party member has taken action to represent those needs, including making sacrifices, even on behalf of the people.  A Party member is fighting against the fundamental cause of the problems facing the people, which is none other than the capitalist system. This is the basic reason why we are revolutionaries; we are willing to sacrifice for others; we are willing to serve our communities and society.

ELECTIONS    

The campaign

It is important for our revolutionary alliance to get another electoral mandate through the ANC. The ANC is not just a tried and tested revolutionary movement, but it is a movement that is loyal to the needs and cause of the people in our country, our continent and the world. The ANC is the embodiment of the future of humanity. This is recognised worldwide, by how the people have appreciated the humanism and the humanity of comrade Nelson Mandela. They say, as the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Ban KI-moon has said, in Madiba we have seen the embodiment of the UN values. Indeed, the UN has said South Africa is the home of humanity. This has been made possible by the ANC.

So to vote for the ANC we are voting for humanity. It is therefore important that we don`t take our election work lightly. This is a serious campaign for us, because the mandate to continue the transformation of our society is a very important mandate.

Transformation is not an overnight thing that the ultra-leftists think it is, a simple thing, a wish, a magic wand that you can achieve by a slap of a finger. Transformation of society is a hard thing. It needs people who can stay the course, who can`t be diverted. This is what the ANC is about. The ANC is a movement tempered of steel. We must make it to stay the course, not to be diverted.

The elections campaign is very important to our project of transformation. The campaign is about democratically winning the leadership position of government, united as an alliance through the ANC, and take forward our national democratic revolution through governance - our new pillar of struggle since 1994. 

The election manifesto and the call to duty for Party members

At the Alliance Political Council held on Sunday, 5 January 2014, we had a final discussion as the alliance on the election manifesto. People outside must not mislead anyone. We contribute to the drafting of the manifesto as the alliance. Our manifesto is not just the manifesto of the ANC alone. It is an ANC manifesto that represents the entire alliance.

So every member of the Communist Party is instructed to go all out and mobilise our people to vote for the ANC. The ANC NEC will finalise the manifesto, after it has gone through discussions in our Alliance. The President of the ANC, comrade Jacob Zuma, will deliver this manifesto on Saturday, 11 January 2014 at the 102nd ANC Anniversary Celebration Rally. The manifesto will then be given to the people as a whole. This is very important. No other organisation ever does this. We consult not only ourselves as leaders and members, but widely, all sections of our society.

CONCERNING NKANDLA

Big lies

We have been fed many lies mainly through most, but not all, sections of the media. There is this propaganda that the more lies are repeated they end up being believed, instead of the truth. That`s what a German Nazi called Joseph Goebbels believed. He was a falsehood propagandist, a great liar, who was the right hand man of Adolf Hitler.

And that is one of the reasons why Hitler was defeated in World War II (the war Slovo participated in against Hitler`s forces) by General Konstantinovich Zhukov of the Soviet Union. Of course the Allied forces claimed victory. But we know the Soviet Union sacrificed a great deal, losing millions of lives to defeat Hitler. The war was ended by the sacrifices of communists.    

The propaganda of lies seems to have become worse if not dominant. It has now graduated into the magnifying of these lies. To borrow from one of our critiques of the racist apartheid regime`s propaganda in the 1980s during PW Botha`s time, it is now abundantly clear that interest is given to giving space to and therefore telling not only lies but big lies. This is perhaps driven by some belief, wrong in the extreme, that the bigger the lies promoted, the better they stand a chance to be believed.

Give no quarter to the forces of lies

We don`t want lies about Nkandla to prosper. We have decided to engage, but we want to lay a few fundamentals first.

The first and most fundamental point is that President Jacob Zuma never asked government to come and renovate his house. The government never built him a house. He had had his own house. The impression that is being created is that government went to build the President a massive home, that is worth R206 million. If you look at the President`s home, it is not even worth that much.

Secondly, like all other former and future presidents and deputy presidents, President Zuma has the right to protection as determined by the appropriate state security organs. That right can`t be taken away simply because the sitting President is comrade Jacob Zuma.

Thirdly, when the security conducts threats assessment, they don`t even necessarily contact the person concerned. They do it using their own mechanisms and intelligence. Once they are done, they determine whether the person qualifies for security or not. President Zuma is not involved in taking these decisions, nor does he participate when they are made. This is the responsibility of the state security organs.

Fourthly, when the state organs went to Nkandla to do security upgrades at the President`s home, he was already doing his own renovations. It is within his own right to do so, and for his extended family that he stays with. This is our cultural principle, a family is not limited to your wife or your husband and children, but includes extended members if those are there for various personal, historical and social reasons. 

We must combat lies at every turn

Although there are finer details which under normal circumstances are not often disclosed, the report of government investigations into Nkandla is now public, in the government website for all to see.

What happened previously, which is one of the things that led to the need for security upgrade, is that the security of the President will bring him to his home in Nkandla, then leave. They would go far away from the President, right up to Richards Bay to be accommodated in hotels. And those in the team who had to remain behind had to sleep in their cars, cramped. This happened every time when President Zuma is in Nkandla, his home and community, which he can`t leave or abandon simply because he now is the President.

Also, the President`s homestead in Nkandla was attacked three times. There are people who are in jail, who did very wrong things there. The media, and we mean those who took editorial stances against our movement, deliberately do not report about these things. Why? This is part of a bigger propaganda ploy to discredit the President and our movement.

There are 28 houses including the clinic built in Nkandla, next to the hill adjacent to President Zuma`s homestead. These all belong to the state, not President Zuma, and would have been part of the initial cost of around R71 million. They are not built on President Zuma`s stand, but on land owned by the state. These are not reported about in the media. Those who deliberately do not report the truth want to drive a propaganda of lies targeted at the President and our movement, for political reasons. They are creating an impression that the money spent was for the personal benefit of the President.  

What happened to the initial cost?

In all this there were also elements from Public Works Department with their own agendas. They basically escalated the price of almost all the security features to be installed at the President`s home as per the directives of the relevant security organs.

There is a common thing about security upgrades. Just as an example, if you have a house, like the President had had his own house, the security assessors can go to a window and say this must be replaced with a bullet-proof window. And the window will be removed and accordingly replaced. This is not to build you a home. It is to replace what you always had because of security considerations. And it can`t be at your own cost, of course, because you always had a window of yours. The same goes for everything that is destroyed or removed at your home and replaced for security reasons.

If you were to look at previous presidents, the upgrades would have been at similar averages except for inflationary dynamics and spatial factors. The main difference is that the current President has decided not to leave his rural homestead and community. Unlike in the urban areas where there are all development and infrastructural facilities, in rural areas there are very poor facilities and infrastructure. There was not even a tarred road there. The facilities required for security upgrade in a rural area are more extensive than in an urban area, and the cost would obviously be different. 

The main thing, which is a problem, is that officials from Public Works Department varied the costs in an unacceptable manner, leading to too much money being spent. The President was not there in their line of duty, and he did not need to be there. As the Communist Party we agree that the money spent is too much. We condemn the variation, and the main thing we are condemning is the corruption which led to too much money being spent there. But the President was never in the wrong, and two successive reports have exonerated him.

The first report is the report of the Public Works Department, which said he has nothing to do with what was done as per the prescriptions of the relevant state security organs. The second report is that of the Parliament`s Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence. This is a multi-party committee report. The report, too, exonerates the President.

Why now are some constantly targeting President Zuma for the wrong he never committed? From a narrow point of view the issue could seem to be President Zuma`s, but, and broadly, the main target is our movement as led by the ANC. This is for electioneering purposes. We must firmly stand our ground in defence of our movement. Any failure in this regard means that we are not worth our revolution and the revolution is not worth its own credibility.  

But there are more battles that we must fight!

There are various acceptable and legitimate variations and reasons for such in many construction projects. But we now know that there are professional thieves in various state institutions who see this as an opportunity. They vary the cost even when it is not necessary, and in this case they even exceeded the limits allowed. This corruption is what we must fight against.

That is why we have also called as the SACP for wide ranging investigations on all major projects in the Public Works Department, so that we can root out corruption in that department. That is also why we support comrade Thula Nxesi, as the Minister of Public Works, in his efforts to combat corruption in that department.

Now, there has also been this politicking by the opposition. When they realised that their opposition agenda is failing given the reports of the Public Works Department and Parliament`s Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence, they then escalated the matter to the Public Protector, who by the way has been doing a good job which we have no problem with.

However we have always said the Public Protector must not be biased and selective, and must disclose her modus operandi to the public to know the criteria she follows on taking up cases and carrying out investigations.

There are complaints that have been taken to the Public Protector. But to this day there is no report. Thuli Madonsela has been selective. The SACP marched twice to the SABC against corruption. Till now there is no report to the public by the Public Protector concerning the SABC, for close onto two years now! The Public Protector`s office has leaked information. She has also been making comments in a manner that primes the public for a negative reception against the affected parties. 

As the SACP we call on all our members to read the report from government investigations. In the memory of Slovo, we must read, read and read. We must use the reading to engage society. And we must do so robustly, in defence of our movement.

CONCERNING THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT

We know in COSATU an injury to one is an injury to all, which is what Slovo believed in both as a shop steward and revolutionary working class leader. That is why we have always said the unity of workers is fundamental. This unity is the basis upon which revolutionary working class struggles will be conducted.

Forces of reaction are always trying to divide us. They throw all sorts of things against us: among others reactionary unions and vigilante organisations like AMCU that are building themselves by killing other workers. They are trying by all means to destabilise us. Some inside our own formations have taken the bait. They have decided to turn a programme against the enemy into a weapon against our own movement.

Our movement is not the enemy of the workers. Our democratic developmental state that we seek to build is not the enemy of workers. The enemy of workers is the big private capital that exploits them, takes their labour and pays them peanut wages. Therefore we want to take this opportunity to call on all workers in all unions to go all out and mobilise other workers to vote for the ANC. Workers must do so in order to deepen our revolutionary transformation in honour of this great giant intellectual Joe Slovo, and in honour of our great revolutionary icon Nelson Mandela.

This is the message we are sending to all workers, to whom we say don`t allow yourself to be confused.    

THE STRUGGLE FOR WORLD PEACE  

We express our solidarity to the revolutionary combatants of Kurdistan and comrade Abdullah Öcalan, who is incarcerated in conditions similar to those of our revered leader, Nelson Mandela and other freedom fighters in the past. Cde Öcalan is locked up in an island prison, isolated. The only difference with Öcalan is that he is guarded by over 1,000 soldiers for 13 years now. Öcalan was arrested in 1999 on his way to South Africa, which would have offered him political asylum. His flight was diverted from Kenya to Turkey where the Turkish government took him to jail.

Today, as we express our international solidarity with the people of Kurdistan, we call on our government to ensure that the peace talks on Syria include the involvement of the Kurdish people. The Kurdish council has also made the same call, so that their voice can be heard, and that they can participate in the world for humanity, like all of us.

We also reiterate our calls for the people of Cuba, Western Sahara and Palestine, for all peoples of the world who are facing imperialist aggression, political, economic, social and military, to be granted their right to freedom.

We are calling on the United States to lift its illegal and criminal economic embargo against Cuba, and to unconditionally release the Cuban Five from prison. We are calling on Morocco to withdraw its occupation and colonisation of Western Sahara. We are calling on Israel to evacuate Palestinian territories and the people of Palestine to be granted their right to self-determination and national independence in a state based on the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as their capital.

We express our solidarity with all the comrades attending with us here today who are in exile in South Africa because of unjust political persecution, as well as with their various organisations.

We also pledge our support with all the people and revolutionary forces in Africa and the world over, who have taken a stance and are fighting against imperialism.

UNITY IS ESSENTIAL!

Those who are advocating for disunity are obviously not doing so in the interest of our people, because disunity can only serve the enemy and his agents.

As the SACP, taking our cue from those great revolutionaries and theoreticians of the working class, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,   we say `All the workers of the world, unite`. We shall, in memory of the great intellectual of our movement who brought us together here today, Joe Slovo, labour everywhere and at all times for this unity.

Long live the undying revolutionary spirit of Joe Slovo, long live!

This document first appeared in Umsebenzi Online, the online journal of the SACP.

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