SACP condemns theft of its Red October Campaign
Johannesburg - Monday, 14 October 2013 The South African Communist Party (SACP) has noted with disgust the right-wing theft of its Red October Campaign by an essentially racist grouping that has marched to the Union Buildings on Thursday, 10 October 2013. Organised, among others, by the controversial Steve Hofmeyr and Sunette Bridges under our revolutionary banner of the Red October Campaign, the march comprised unpatriotic activities such as the waving of the old South African flag. Amongst the demands of these racist right wingers was an end to "white genocide", something that does not exist, except in a figment of their racist imagination.
Our Red October Campaign stands as a monument and tribute to the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in Russia, which was the first successful working class revolution to overthrow capitalism and tyranny and established a socialist order. This October revolution paved the way for socialist revolutions in other parts of Europe and the rest of the world. The 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia also provided an inspiration to many national liberation movements, like our own in South Africa, to get rid of the racist colonial apartheid system that these racists are now hankering back to.
The march in Tshwane at the Union Buildings stands in direct contrast to the noble objectives of freedom, equality, non-racialism and non-sexism, as the objectives that all those inspired by the 1917 revolution have sought to achieve. We call upon these racists to desist from attempts to steal our highly successful Red October campaign that has been waged by the SACP over the past fourteen years. Theirs has no place in a democratic South Africa.
Claims that whites are facing genocide in South Africa must be dismissed with the contempt it deserves. We call upon the working class, including the white working class, to identify with the SACP's Red October Campaign, and not be misled by racists who do not have their interests at heart.
The Red October Campaign is not an imitation inspired by playing with red balloons on the green grass of the Union Buildings. Since its inauguration by the SACP in South Africa the campaign has resulted in important achievements for the working class and the poor. This includes advances and a shift in policy in land redistribution and agrarian transformation, health care transformation particularly through the adoption of a move towards the National Health Insurance, rural development, progress towards the transformation of the financial sector, to mention but a few.
Statement issued by the SACP Headquarters, October 14 2013
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