Red Alert: Emulate Chris Hani

Let us remember Chris Hani properly - not just as a face on a T-shirt - a symbol of vague rebellion used even by those with no understanding of what he really stood for as has happened with Che Guevara. Like Che, Chris Hani was far more than a fashion statement.

Chris Hani was first and foremost a Communist - not only a member of the South African Communist Party, but a man who in every fibre of his being dedicated his whole life to the finest cause in the world - the liberation of mankind.

Belief and actual participation in the struggle go beyond simple emotion, although anger and hatred of oppression are a starting point, in most cases. A real revolutionary, a real Communist not only fights AGAINST oppression: a real revolutionary, a real Communist fights FOR the creation of a better society, a just society in which every individual can recognise his or her true potential as part of a collective sharing rights and responsibilities in a dignified manner.

A person who merely reacts against a system without knowing or understanding how to change it is a rebel. One who understands society, the causes and drivers of the problems it faces, and who seeks to turn the society around - to actually change it - is a revolutionary.

Such was Chris Hani.

To be a revolutionary it is an absolute necessity to be politically educated. As the great Vladimir Lenin taught us, "Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement." Like all great revolutionaries, he was a great reader and an intellectual. He held a BA degree in Latin and English, yet he came from a poor home in the Eastern Cape and his parents were hardly literate. He mastered the theoretical works of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and Lenin.

Such was Chris Hani.

But as Marx himself taught us, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways: the point is to change it". Or as Marx's lifelong friend and collaborator, Engels said, "Practice without theory is blind. Theory without practice is sterile. Theory becomes a material force as soon as it is absorbed by the masses."

Chris Hani understood these principles very well. He never reduced his work to ideas or to abstract "intellectual" utopia stuck in ivory tower offices detached from the masses or without active participation in the key sites of the struggle. Guided by revolutionary theory, Chris Hani took action. He was involved in the real activity of struggle - which is the lifeblood of social change. In 1961, he joined the underground Communist Party, then the scholar became a soldier; in 1962 at the age of 20 he joined the joint ANC-SACP people's liberation army, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).

But Chris Hani also understood the principle initiated by James La Guma and laid down in 1928 by the Communist International, an organisation bringing together all communist and workers parties of the world:

"The Party should pay particular attention to the embryonic national organisations among the natives, such as the African National Congress. The Party, while retaining its full independence, should participate in these organisations, should seek to broaden and extend their activity. Our aim should be to transform the African National Congress into a fighting nationalist revolutionary organisation against the white bourgeoisie and the British imperialists, based upon the trade unions, peasant organisations, etc."

This principle, not at first understood, was the principle put into practice by Moses Kotane, Chief Architect of the Struggle who played a major role in the revival of the ANC in 1937 and became General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1939.

Chris Hani emulated the example of Moses Kotane. He had joined the ANC Youth League in 1957 at the age of 15 and by 1982 had become a member of the ANC National Executive Committee. And in 1991 he again followed in the footsteps of the great Kotane by becoming General Secretary of the SACP.

As a true Communist, Chris Hani was a proletarian internationalist. In 1967 he was part of the joint ZIPRA - MK force. ZIPRA, the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army was the army of the Zimbabwe African People's Union, ZAPU. The joint force crossed the Limpopo from Zambia and began the first armed resistance against the Smith regime in Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia in the Wankie and Sipholilo Campaigns. Here he worked with the Zimbabwean military leaders Dumiso Dabengwa and Rex Nhongo. He retained a close relationship with the Zimbabweans for the rest of his life. How he would have hated xenophobia and despised those who perpetrate vicious acts against other Africans!

In 1969, he wrote the famous "Hani Memorandum". This document developed a sharp constructive self-criticism of our liberation movement in exile and was concerned with the plight of MK combatants and the imperative to push the struggle in the home front. This criticism was useful as it led to the watershed Morogoro Conference of 1969 and the establishment of the Revolutionary Council which was to direct and organise the struggle from then until victory.

It was this exemplary history as a Communist which led the counter-revolutionaries to select Comrade Chris as their prime target in 1993. This choice was no accident: it was (from their point of view) an informed and deliberate choice. Chris Hani, more than any other person at this time, was likely to have led the people far beyond merely ending apartheid - and they knew it.

Today, as we enter the Second, More Radical Phase of our Democratic Transition, as we begin to implement a programme to economically empower the working-class and the poor, the forces of imperialism internationally and within the country have embarked on a co-ordinated campaign of destabilisation. They have been joined by some former "Comrades" intent on dividing the movement and the people.

Some of these elements have become the willing collaborators of the anti-ANC headed Alliance and democratic majority. Yet others, the New Tendency, are trying to sell the idea that economic transformation means empowering THEM to become the exploiters of the masses and thus to wear the shoes of those who exploited our people during the era of colonial and apartheid oppression. Exchanging white capitalists by black capitalists - white exploiters by black exploiters, all over the masses who suffer from economic exploitation and its effects; class inequality, unemployment and poverty; that is what they mean.

In remembering Comrade Chris Hani, he must be seen as more than a "struggle icon". His example must become the template against which other comrades measure themselves. His example must be emulated by our revolutionary youth as they study and analyse the current conditions of our struggle and take resolute and militant action to advance the Second, More Radical Phase of our Democratic Transition. A transition rooted in the Freedom Charter. A transition in the revolutionary tradition of Chris Hani.

Let us emulate the spirit of discipline and self-discipline set by the example of Chris Hani in his revolutionary life and times. Hani expressed his views without fear or favour, yet he respected the principle of democratic centralism. According to the principle, individual members and leaders must express themselves in democratic decision-making processes. They must respect, defend, and according to the applicable division of work, implement the collective decisions reached at the end of this freedom of discussion. It is this unity in action that is referred to as centralism, with the decisions taken by the highest leading organs binding on lower structures, individual leaders and members regardless of their personal views.

Chris Hani maintained and displayed this revolutionary discipline at a delicate time when the armed struggle was suspend at the beginning of the 1990s. He believed the decision was untimely but despite his personal views he went on to defend it, even against people who shared his viewpoint but did not want to accept the decision of the higher body. In defending the decision, this is what he had to say: "In the current political situation, the decision by our organisation to suspend armed action is correct and is an important contribution in maintaining the momentum of negotiation".

In memory of Chris Hani, let us build, defend and further develop the unity of the working class movement and our ANC-headed liberation Alliance!

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

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