Basic text of the keynote address delivered by the SACP General Secretary, Solly Mapaila

6 October 2024

For over two decades now, the SACP Red October Campaign has been a consistent part of our working-class struggle to advance the national democratic revolution. Over the years, we have focused the campaign on various critical economic and social development measures immediate for the workers and poor, while taking care of the future of the entire working class as a movement through the broader struggle for socialism. The Red October Campaign is part and parcel of the process of our struggle to secure the non-capitalist development path.

Continuing the struggle through the Red October Campaign

Initially, we focused the Red October Campaign on mobilising the working class in the fight for financial sector transformation, land redistribution and agrarian transformation, taking forward the struggle for economic and social justice, in particular, an end to economic exploitation of the working class and domination of society by the tiny minority of the heartless capitalist class.

As part of the Red October Campaign, we have led working-class struggles against neo-liberal policies, including privatisation and austerity. We have focused on tackling the capitalist system problems of unemployment, poverty and inequality, among others, as part of our broader struggle to achieve a revolution and replace the exploitative system with the caring socialist mode of production.  

Deepening our efforts to achieve industrialisation and large-scale employment creation, secure the right of all to work in practice, eradicate poverty, radically reduce inequality, improve the social relief of distress grant and transform it into a universal basic income grant, is a key part of the Red October Campaign 2024–2025 theme: “Tackle the cost-of-living crisis. Implement the National Health Insurance Now!”

Similarly, the government, especially the Presidency, must avoid entertaining the profit-driven opposition to or dilly-dallying on the implementation of the National Health Insurance. Access to quality healthcare for all through the National Health Insurance is crucial for human development.

One death resulting from the cost-of-living crisis, where the victim was deprived of access to quality healthcare, is utterly intolerable. Such a death is not merely an individual tragedy, but a profound indictment of the systemic inequalities that perpetuate social suffering. In a just society, no one should be denied essential healthcare based on their class location or position. The struggle to ensure universal access to quality healthcare is central to the fight for genuine freedom and dignity for all. This is a key priority for our Red October Campaign 2024–2025.

The supporting theme of the Red October Campaign 2024–2025, “Together, let’s forge a popular left front and build a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor”, is critical, as there can be no social revolution without a consciously organised social force, especially a class force. Today, the SACP calls on the working class as a whole, “Let us build this maximum unity of purpose.”

Let us look back briefly, drawing lessons from our own activism to advance forward more determinedly.

One of the key milestones of our Red October Campaign was its early emphasis on land redistribution, food security and sustainable livelihoods. We drew attention to the persistent land ownership and related production inequalities rooted in South Africa’s colonial and apartheid history. These inequalities are now daily reproduced by the dog-eat-dog capitalist market.

Our focus on land redistribution, food security and sustainable livelihoods continued over the years. We have advocated for land to be redistributed to the workers and poor people, who the state, in line with the Freedom Charter, must empower with resources and technical capacity to use land productively to support their lives. This remains essential in pursuit of the Red October Campaign 2024–2025 theme, to “Tackle the cost-of-living crisis”.

We have now developed a strong focus on village development. This is a crucial part of our efforts to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and address uneven development disparities between rural and urban areas, while empowering rural communities. By concentrating on the land economy – broadly defined – we aim to develop and increase total productive forces and enhance, diversify and increase the levels of production in our villages. We have initiated projects in several villages across various provinces, including Mpumalanga. As this village development model expands, it will increasingly encompass more villages nationwide, using land, water and energy as the foundation for economic production.

We want to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to the traditional leaders who have made land available for this initiative. Moving forward, we will engage with more traditional leaders, and communal property associations, to further support and expand this vital village development model.

We urge communal property associations to stop internal conflicts and for those whose terms of office have expired to respect democratic processes by allowing elections to take place. This is essential to ensure accountability and the smooth functioning of these associations, which can play a vital role in the rural economy and productive land use and management is run properly.

It is important for all of us to understand that, in class terms, the cost-of-living crisis affects the working class only, especially the poor, while members of the capitalist class use their exploitative accumulation of society’s wealth to secure themselves and their families against the crisis. In any case, the multiple systemic crises affecting the workers and poor are direct results of the capitalist mode of production, its conditions and levers of the accumulation of society’s wealth. We cannot, therefore, intensify the struggle to tackle the cost-of-living crisis without, at the same time, intensifying the anti-capitalist struggle.

In the same vein, through wars and the illegal regime of unilateral sanctions, the capitalist imperialist forces have driven up the prices of oil and its byproducts, such as fuel. This has, in turn, driven up the prices of all other products that require oil and fuel byproducts to produce or transport. We cannot, therefore, intensify the struggle to tackle the cost-of-living crisis without, at the same time, intensifying the struggle imperialism.

To the working class of our country, the SACP says, “Let us build maximum unity, forge a popular left front and build a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor to intensify the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist struggle.”

In recent years, we have strengthened the Red October Campaign focus on addressing the multiple crises affecting the workers and poor. Notably, the multiple crises include the crisis of social reproduction – the unbearable hardship to support life. In 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, we prioritised saving lives and livelihoods, calling for mass vaccination and supporting working-class recovery​. This remains essential.

For example, unemployment is higher now and affects more people, over 12 million in total, than before the unemployment crisis before COVID-19 pandemic crisis. This is, rather than post-COVID recovery, one of the reasons why the capitalist cost-of-living crisis affects a greater number of people, the unemployed and working poor combined.

Let us expand working-class unity to intensify our struggle against neo-liberal restructuring and policies, including fiscal austerity, high interest rates, retrenchments and their impact on affected families and co-operatives. This impact includes the mental health problems that have risen.

For instance, the South African Society of Psychiatrists has drawn attention to the fact that South Africa rose to the top ten on the list of countries with the most suicides. The World Health Organisation highlighted that 13,774 suicides were reported in South Africa in 2019.

In gender terms, 10,861 or 78.85 per cent of the suicides were among men. This may indicate how patriarchal expectations around who is responsible for providing for a family weigh heavier on men while marginalising women in the economy.

The struggle for gender equality is essential as an integral part of the Red October Campaign. In this regard, a strong focus on eliminating interpersonal and gender-based violence and ensuring safer communities by going all out to fight the astronomical levels of crime in communities are integral objectives for the Red October Campaign.

Let us unite to tackle gender-based violence

For the second quarter of 2024, South Africa continued to report troubling statistics on gender-based violence. In this quarter, over 9,600 rape cases were reported, reflecting the country’s ongoing struggle with high levels of sexual violence.

In the Eastern Cape, rapists extort rent from their targeted victims, demanding payment in exchange for the so-called “protection” from this sexual assault. This is the horrifying extent to which senseless gender-based violence of rape has escalated into complete lawlessness.

The number of femicide cases remained particularly concerning, with more than 800 women murdered, showing a persistent rise compared to the previous year. These rape and femicide cases are roughly four times annualised than they appear for a single quarter. 

Assaults against women were also widespread, with over 12,000 cases of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, indicating a continuing pattern of intimate partner and domestic violence. Despite government initiatives, including the establishment of gender-based violence desks in police stations and Thuthuzela Care Centres to support victims, reporting barriers and systemic failures hinder effective interventions. This means, accounting for unreported cases, gender-based violence figures are higher in almost every category than the reported cases. ​

The SACP calls on efforts to tighten the legal framework, such as the Criminal Law Amendment Bills and the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide to be finalised as a matter of priority. To be comprehensive and effective, the strategy must articulate the whole-of-state measures, including efforts to address the underlying economic, social, phycological, cultural and religious factors, among others.  

Bring Eastern Cape mass shooters to book, crack down on mafia nationwide

The Eastern Cape mass shooting claimed the lives of 18 victims, including women caught in this senseless assault, when two homesteads on the same street in Lusikisiki were targeted last week. As the SACP, we condemn this brutal massacre in the strongest possible terms. This attack reflects a deepening crisis of lawlessness, where communities, particularly the most vulnerable, continue to be terrorised. This must be met with decisive action by all local, provincial and national law enforcement authorities.

We also call for urgent, uncompromising action against the construction, tender, or so-called “protection” mafia terrorising South Africa. These criminal syndicates, often operating with impunity, destabilise communities and exploit workers, households and small enterprises, among others. The state must launch an all-out offensive to dismantle these networks, protect the working class, and restore safety across the country. We demand an immediate crackdown on these elements before they further entrench their reign of terror​.

Financial sector transformation

The financial sector campaign, which we launched in the early 2000s, is among the significant contributions made by the Red October Campaign. This was a pivotal effort in challenging the exclusionary and exploitative character of South Africa’s financial sector, which historically marginalised the working class, especially the poor, informal workers and those without formal employment contracts.

A key victory from the financial sector campaign was the introduction of the Mzansi Account, a low-cost banking option launched in 2004. The campaign aimed to expand financial inclusion, targeting previously unbanked groups. This move was essential in allowing the masses, particularly the unemployed, self-employed and low-wage workers without payslips, to open bank accounts, a precursor to the widespread digital banking options available today​.

Another major achievement was our role in pushing for legislative changes, most notably the National Credit Act passed in 2005. This law introduced stringent measures to curb reckless, predatory and unsustainable insecure lending practices, helping to protect vulnerable consumers from falling into debt traps. The creation of the National Credit Regulator was a direct result of the financial sector campaign. This culminated in the Financial Sector Conduct Authority. These changes now play a critical role in regulating lending practices and promoting fairness, among others.

Thanks to the groundwork laid by the financial sector campaign, South Africa’s financial system was relatively more resilient compared to what happened in the United States and many countries, where deregulated banks and other financial sector institutions wreaked havoc, contributing in no small measure to the 2008 global economic crisis.

Had it not been for the regulation that can be traced to the financial sector campaign, the impact of the 2008 global economic crisis in South Africa would have been far worse. Unlike in the United States, where major banks collapsed and significant amounts of value were wiped out as part of that crisis, South Africa’s financial system remained relatively stable.

The regulatory benefits emanating from the financial sector campaign in South Africa, compared to the anarchy and deleterious effects of unregulated financial institutions in the United States and elsewhere, were appreciated by many people beyond our country. A global financial sector regulation movement arose in response to the destructive impact of the 2008 global economic crisis. This culminated in financial sector conduct authorities not only in South Africa and many countries globally.

The 2008 global economic crisis shattered the myth of the self-regulating or unregulated market. The crisis exposed the inherent risks and destructive consequences of the unchecked market forces, particularly in the financial sector, where reckless lending, speculation and lack of oversight led to widespread collapses.

Immediate financial sector transformation tasks

Beyond regulation to benefit the people as a whole, and consumer demands which remain relevant, such as the call for the reduction of financial service fees, notably including bank charges and interest rates, through our Red October Campaign, we have called for structural, ownership and management control transformation of the financial sector. This is as relevant as ever. To this end, the working class, as the main motive force of democratic transformation and development, needs to pull up its socks.

For instance, the banking sector in South Africa is still dominated by private sector oligopolies, a few profit-driven commercial banks, who together, and their ilk in other segments of the financial sector, make up private finance monopoly capital. State participation, on behalf of the people as a whole, is virtually nowhere to be found in the banking sector, in contradiction to the Freedom Charter.

Worker-owned co-operative banks still face a systemic challenge of rising and thrive. This is a result, among others, of the dominance of bourgeois orientations in key institutions and their regulatory roles. Both the South African Reserve Bank and the National Treasury, for instance, have thus far been unhelpful in helping to foster a thriving co-operative banking sector. Their roles need to be re-examined to demonopolise and transform the entire financial sector.

In the here and now, the commitment in the May 2024 election manifesto adopted by all Alliance partners to build a state financial sector must be implemented. The working class must ensure that this happens as a key government priority for the next five years.

In the same vein, we must continue to campaign for an enabling legislative environment and support for co-operative banks to rise and thrive as a sector, to empower workers and communities in real economic terms, in ownership and management control.

Taking forward our critical stance

The Red October Campaign 2024–2025 objectives we summarise in this statement are essential as we intensify our critical stance towards the “government of national unity”, which includes unrepentant representatives from neo-liberal class forces, in particular, the DA. The DA’s inclusion in the “government of national unity” reflects an underlying class compromise, or a capitulation, to a certain extent, to the interests the class forces that they represent.

Dominant sections of capital, with roots tracing back to colonial and apartheid oppression of the majority by the minority, sponsored right-wing parties in the May 2024 elections. Their agenda was clear: to remove the ANC from the government. How can we, after the elections, embrace these parties – specifically the DA – and call it a “return to normal” in a “democracy”? This is not normal for us. We will not embrace the DA, and we reject any alliance and marriage with it and the class forces of monopoly capital it represents. The DA’s history is rooted in the beneficiaries of apartheid, and it continues to serve their interests today, including in education, among others.     

The postponed implementation of key clauses in the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act is indicative of a capitulation to the right-wing forces led by the DA, even if, in this case, it may be temporary – provided that the postponement is not extended further.

Neo-liberal policies often exacerbate inequality, cut social spending and further entrench corporate power, contradicting the goals of social justice and redistribution that are central to a revolutionary agenda. By cutting or stopping personnel recruitment in government departments, neo-liberal policies like austerity severely undermine the capacity of the state to serve the people. Austerity measures, which prioritise reducing government spending and limiting public sector growth, often result in reduced public services, overburdened staff and weakened institutional capacity. This directly impacts critical sectors such as healthcare and education, among others, where shortages of personnel lead to declining service quality and reduced access, particularly for the working class.

In essence, budget cuts affecting state capacity and development imperatives hinder the government’s ability to deliver essential services and drive transformation. Neo-liberal austerity thus shifts the burden of the capitalist-system-engendered economic and social reproduction crises onto the shoulders of ordinary citizens, further entrenching systemic injustices.

As such, we must continue to challenge the rightward shift in government composition and policy. Driving these objectives forward means pressing the government, among others, to adopt policies that prioritise public ownership and social control of resources, in line with the demands of the Freedom Charter and the broader aspirations of the national democratic revolution, must form part of advancing our critical stance towards the “government of national unity” because of its inclusion neo-liberal class forces represented by the likes of the DA.

Only through this ongoing struggle can we move closer to achieving a society where wealth and power are truly in the hands of the people, as opposed to the tiny minority privileged by colonial and apartheid oppression and capitalist exploitation of workers.

International solidarity

We want to take this opportunity to condemn the apartheid Israeli settler state for its ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people and bombardment of Lebanon, where it has killed the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and other Lebanese people.

The SACP stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine against the occupation of their land and in their just struggle against the occupying Israeli settler regime.

We call for an immediate ceasefire, unconditional end to the occupation of all occupied Palestinian lands and immediate international recognition of the Palestinians’ fundamental right to self-determination in their entire land.

The leaders of the apartheid Israeli settler regime must be held accountable for violating the rights of Palestinian people and for their attacks on other countries in the Middle East, including the killings and destructions it has carried out in Lebanon and Iran.

We stand with the Lebanese and Iranian people who form part of the axis of resistance to the imperialist-backed Israeli regime. 

The SACP reiterates its call for an end to the colonial occupation of Western Sahara by the imperialist-backed Morocco.

We reiterate our support for the people of Swaziland struggling for democracy. Mswati’s Tinkhundla regime must be held accountable for the assassinations and human rights violations it is implicated in – in South Africa, including the recent forced poisoning and attempted assassination of the President of the People’s United Democratic Movement of Swaziland, Mlungisi Makhanya.

We stand with the people of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and others in the Caribbean, South America and other parts of the world against United States-led imperialist machinations and aggression.

Our solidarity is with the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the People’s Republic of China in their struggle against imperialist forces.

We call on the workers of the world, “Let us unite. We have nothing to lose but our chains”. 

Issued by Alex Mashilo, National Spokesperson, SACP, 6 October 2024