SACP Gauteng dismisses the venomous attacks by Mr Irvin Jim as mere parting-shots of an exhausted demagogue on exit

Johannesburg - 23 October 2013

The South African Communist Party (SACP) in Gauteng Province dismisses with contempt the venomous, scathing and malicious attacks directed against the SACP's character by Mr Irvin Jim, current General Secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). The SACP is, on the contrary, a leading and only Marxist-Leninist Vanguard Party in our country.

The statement by Mr Irvin Jim, published on Politics Web constitute the most slanderous and destructive public attack against the SACP by a supposedly SACP member in good standing since the Party was unbanned in 1990.

The SACP Gauteng strongly believes that this latest version of a ranting by a self-tiring populist demagogue, who is apparently bidding farewell to the revolutionary movement and the Party in particular, represents the most anti-communist, anti-worker invective post the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.

Whilst we would under normal circumstances not give credence to this cheap populist rhetoric surely befitting to amuse "mocking-birds", we believe this particular attack is consistent with many of its ilk.

This particular attack in many ways bears similar features of those expressed by people that finally left the revolutionary movement and the SACP, and such features include but not limited in their order of preference to the following.

1. An attack against the SACP, its leadership and Marxist-Leninist character by claiming to be the most revolutionary if not the only "Vanguard".

2. Invoking the spirit of the dead to weigh heavily on the living, such as the opportunistic distortion and abuse of names of former SACP leaders, especially Joe Slovo and Chris Hani.

3. Allege without proof and concrete facts, the betrayal of the Freedom Charter, although inconsistent with its non-racial character, more often puffing like a coal-train racist black smoke and rhetoric to conveniently appeal to the historically oppressed.

4. Claim to be the "last person standing" in defence of the Freedom Charter, and all the best traditions of the revolutionary movement.

5. Finally leave the movement through a "press conference" on grounds of defending the principles of the Freedom Charter outside the movement that founded it.

Based on concrete experience and past track record, it is clear that Jim's last article attacking the SACP meets all the criteria of a parting shot and perhaps the urgent political task of the movement should be a tireless effort to cement the unity of the workers and the revolutionary trade union movement.

The SACP Gauteng is of the view that the truth, however discomforting, about our National Democratic Revolution (NDR), is that its historic and class enemies locally and internationally, have realised the collapse of a Democratic Alliance-led path to counter-revolution given the deep historic realities of our country.

In this context, their new pilot scheme for counter-revolution, which following media reports apparently and allegedly include Mr Irvin, is to use "comrades" and people drawn from the ranks of the historically oppressed, dressed in full costume, poetry and well taught in the mother tongue of our revolutionary movement, thus making translation to the enemy's language very easy.

The SACP Gauteng wishes Mr Irvin Jim well in his new endeavours. We make a clarion call to the movement as whole, the industrial proletariat, and working class in general, to defend our revolution and resist attempts to turn our country into a semi-colonial outlet of monopoly capital, black or white, local or international.

For this our Red Brigade, as part of the ANC ‘s Moses Kotane Election Brigade in Gauteng, will work very closely with our Alliance partners to ensure that, come 2014 national and provincial elections, the fruit of our revolution and country does not fall into the slippery hands of Imperialism.

Statement issued by the SACP Gauteng Provincial Secretary, Jacob Mamabolo, October 23 2013

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