Former deputy president Jacob Zuma, in his capacity as deputy president of the ruling African National Congress, will be one of the guest speakers at this weekend’s celebration of the South African Communist Party’s (SACP) 85th anniversary.
He will be joined at the celebrations this weekend in Pietermaritzburg by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, who will also speak. SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande will address the gathering.
Zuma, who was deputy president of the nation until a year ago, appears in court for alleged corruption on Monday, also in Pietermaritzburg.
In a statement released by the party, it noted that the celebratory national rally will be held on Sunday July 30.
In a statement released by spokesperson Kaizer Mohau, the SACP noted that it had been launched in Cape Town on July 29 1921. ”It was the first communist party in Africa, and among the earliest members of the newly formed Communist International based in Moscow.”
The party added: ”Throughout the world, working people and the poor were inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution. For the first time in history, workers and peasants had successfully overthrown the bourgeoisie and embarked upon a socialist revolution.”
The party said that in these 85 years, it had been a pioneer of non-racialism from the 1920s, and for most of its existence, the party was the only political formation in South Africa in which there were black and white members struggling together shoulder to shoulder in the same trench.
”As communists, we have laid down a tradition of non-racialism that has now become a foundation stone of the new South Africa,” the party said.
It has also been a party of militant trade unionists and of mass mobilisation, as well as rural activism, and a party of cooperatives and community work, including in the 1940s when Dora Tamana pioneered a cooperative movement in the informal settlements of the Cape Flats.
It has also been a party of guerrilla fighters and martyrs, it said.
This included Chris Hani, who was killed in 1993 by assassins.
It had also been a party of revolutionary theory and learning, noting that communist militants like TW Thibedi and Eddie Roux pioneered what would now be called adult basic education and training. They had run night schools in which migrants workers were provided with basic literacy and political theory.
In Umkhonto weSizwe camps and in prison yards during the apartheid years, communist party militants — among them Jack Simons and Govan Mbeki — wrote books and conducted classes, even in the most unfavourable conditions.
”For 85 years we have kept the red flag flying here in South Africa,” the party said.
According to SACP deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin, the party has about 70 MPs serving within the ANC. — I-Net Bridge