Our revolutionary Alliance is a precondition for the success of our National Democratic Revolution

On the 8 of January the people of our country and the world celebrated the 101 anniversary of the birth of the oldest liberation movement in our continent and probably the whole world, the African National Congress. We celebrate the achievements and selfless contribution by the people of our country to liberate themselves and the world against imperialist exploitation and colonial domination. The struggles led by our national liberation movement is part of the worldwide struggles by the progressive people of the world to liberate humanity from the bondage of poverty, disease and underdevelopment.

We welcome the political instruction delivered during the occasion of the January 8 rally on behalf of the national executive committee of the ANC by President Jacob Zuma. The archives of our history books will record this historic political instruction as foremost the first January 8 statement of our first year into the second century of the existence of our glorious movement. We count ourselves in the generations of mankind to be the most humbled living testimony of the 101 anniversary celebrations of this glorious chapter of the history of our liberation struggles.

The National Executive Committee of the ANC has declared 2013 as the year of unity in action towards socio economic freedom. The theme by our National Executive Committee is consistent with the objective concrete realities relevant to our own specific conditions in current phase of our national democratic revolution. Without fear of any contradictions the theme by the collective leadership of our movement has indeed reaffirmed the revolutionary character of the ANC as a national liberation movement. 

Our national liberation movement has once again reasserted its posture as the living embodiment of the true traditions and revolutionary ethos of the struggles of the working class movement. Our movement has essentially reaffirmed its commitment to the noble cause of the progressive world movement to liberate the people of the world from the shackless of imperialist exploitation and neo colonialism.

The revolutionary character and the posture of our movement is still consistent with the spirit of internationalism emanating from the plenary session of the second congress of the third international held in 1920. The historic plenary of the second congress of the third international adopted the most profound theoretical analysis of the objective socio economic circumstances faced by the oppressed people living in the colonies and semi colonies.

The historic plenary of the second congress of the third international therefore proceeded from this concrete basis of the theoretical analysis of the historical and social conditions of the oppressed people in the colonies and semi colonies. Emanating from this concrete basis of analysis, the plenary posed the most important question, with regard to the dialectical relationship between the communist international and revolutionary national movements of the oppressed people in the colonies and semi colonies dominated by capitalist imperialism.

After a thorough analysis of the world class balance of forces, the plenary of the second congress adopted a theoretical formulation that categorized all colonies and the semi colonies of the world as the foundation and colonial base of imperialism. The plenary therefore, instructed all communist parties of the world to establish relationships with revolutionary movements led by the oppressed people in the colonies and semi colonies. The understanding was premised from the point of view that the success of the struggles of the people in the colonies and semi colonies, was a precondition for the victories of the struggles of the international. 

The plenary session of the second congress of the third international was a watershed in the struggles for the development of the organizational capacity of the revolutionary movements in the colonies and semi colonies. Communist parties in the whole world together with other revolutionary movements in the colonies and semi colonies, joined the struggles of the oppressed people against imperialism and national colonial oppression. This new form of revolutionary alliance between communist parties of the world and national liberation movements deepened the crisis of the world colonial system and open a new front of successful struggles by revolutionary movements in the colonies and semi colonies.

The instruction by the third international to the communist parties of the world, to collaborate with national liberation movements, helped a great deal in strengthening the organization of the international proletariat movement especially in the colonies and semi colonies. At the same time the world communist movement became the greatest political formation of our modern times.

With regard to the specific situation of the south african political socio and economic conditions, the plenary called for the creation of the an independent native south african republic, as a stage towards a workers and peasant republic with full equal rights of all races. This profound slogan for the creation of a native republic in accordance with the specific concrete socio economic conditions of our country, became a bedrock upon which our revolutionary alliance formulated the theoretical foundations of our national democratic revolution. This formulation provided our deep insight into understanding the dialectical relationship between the national, class and gender questions.

The black republic thesis became the mainstay from which our revolutionary alliance extrapolated the theoretical premise that the oppressed people of south africa, do not only suffer from capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination, but also from racial discrimination. In essence the plenary understood the notion that the struggle for the liberation of the oppressed people of south Africa from colonialism of a special type,  was the integral part of the worldwide struggles of the working class movement in the colonies and semi colonies.

The leader of the International Communist Movement Vladimir Lenin would say"  Marxism teaches the proletarian not to keep aloof from the bourgeois revolution, not to be indifferent to it, not to allow the leadership of the revolution to be assumed by the bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, to take a most energetic part in it, to fight most resolutely for consistent proletarian democracy, for carrying the revolution to its conclusion. 

We cannot jump out of the bourgeois-democratic boundaries of the Russian revolution, but we can vastly extend these boundaries, and within these boundaries we can and must fight for the interests of the proletariat, for its immediate needs and for the conditions that will make it possible to prepare its forces for the future complete victory". 

Our leader, and the most the prolific revolutionary thinker of our century, would further say " The socialist revolution is not one single act, not one single battle on a single front; but a whole epoch of intensified class conflicts, a long series of battles on all fronts, i.e., battles around all the problems of economics and politics, which can culminate only in the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. It would be a fundamental mistake to suppose that the struggle for democracy can divert the proletariat from the socialist revolution, or obscure, or overshadow it, etc. On the contrary, just as socialism cannot be victorious unless it introduces complete democracy, so the proletariat will be unable to prepare for victory over the bourgeoisie unless it wages a many-sided, consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy.

Of course, democracy is also a form of state which must disappear when the state disappears, but this will take place only in the process of transition from completely victorious and consolidated socialism to complete communism". 

We celebrate the 101 anniversary of the birth of our national liberation movement twenty two years after the shockwaves of the sudden collapse of the communist states in the soviet union and the eastern Europe. The subsequent collapse of the world communist movement ushered in a new phenomenon in the unipolar world of imperialist triumphalism, consolidation of the Washington consensus and aggressive military industrial complex. The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Europe was the greatest setback to the struggles of the world working class movement. It was indeed a setback to the spirit of proletariat internationalism that prevailed during the historic plenary of the second congress of the third international held in 1920. 

Today the suffering people of the world find themselves having to take forward the struggles for their own liberation under difficult conditions, imposed by the complex and hostile socio economic conditions of the unipolar world. The unprecedented levels of poverty, disease and underdevelopment is a living testimony that capitalism and imperialism cannot resolve its own contradictions. The mismanagement of the world economic systems by the monopoly capital in the USA and the European Union has plunged humanity and the world into a perpetual state of a crisis. 

The Eurozone has become the epicenter of the world economic crisis. The spiraling crisis has compelled many of the European member states to impose harsh austerity measures that saw huge cuts on social spending, privatization of the key sectors of the economy, high inflation and increased living standards, increased inequalities and unemployment etc. This crisis has also inflicted serious adverse effects on our own economy and therefore our revolutionary programme for  radical socio economic transformation.

Given the analysis of the world socio and economic relations, therefore the theme by our National Executive Committee to declare 2013 as the year for unity in action for socio economic transformation, is consistent with the immediate task of our movement, of confronting the three and half centuries contradictions of the legacy of imperialism and apartheid colonialism imposed on our people. 

We celebrate the birthday of our national liberation movement few days after the people of our country and the world, commemorated the 18th anniversary of the passing on of one of the most outstanding and finest revolutionary fighter of our movement and the former general secretary of the SACP  Cde Joe Slovo. This outstanding son of our movement was the master of the physics and chemistry of the South African liberation struggles and our transition to democracy.

Cde Joe Slovo was the most humbled leader of our people, he was a commander of Mkhonto we Ziswe, a leader of the ANC, a communist,an internationalist and the most revolutionary thinker our movement has ever produced. 

Isithwalandwe Joe Slovo was the author of some of the most critical theoretical interventions that guided our movement during the most difficult periods of our struggles. The footprints of his interventions like the no middle road, has socialism failed and his most brilliant intervention on the sun clause will forever remain the birthmarks of our national democratic revolution. 

Our leader Vladimir Lenin in his intervention of the Two Tactics of social democracy would again say "Like everything else in the world, the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry has a past and a future. Its past is autocracy, serfdom, monarchy, and privilege....Its future is the struggle against private property, the struggle of the wage-worker against the employer, the struggle for socialism".  

His profound theoretical contribution towards  the south african transitional period saw the adoption of the sun set clause, the most strategic intervention that crafted our way forward towards our negotiated political settlement. He understood precisely in his contribution that our revolution has a past and a future. That it requires the most strategic intervention to navigate the transition of our national democratic revolution from the apartheid regime to our democratic dispensation.

The sun set clause intervention navigated our transition to democracy during the most difficult period of events in the history of the world. It happened on the eve of
-- the collapse of the soviet block and the communist states in the Eastern Europe.
--  the unbanning of the liberation movement and the release of our leadership from apartheid jails.
-- when our democratic movement had to confront the realities of the apartheid structural economic framework, which over decades marginalized the vast majority of our people from the commanding heights of our economy.
--when the apartheid racist regime unbanned the entire liberation movement in our country and released political prisoners from apartheid jails.
--and when we had to honour our obligation to pay the massive apartheid debt owed to the international finance institutions.

It is from this context that we appreciate the contribution of this son of our soil, of giving the best tactical approaches during the most complex period of our transition from apartheid racist regime to our new democratic dispensation. As the most disciplined cadre of our movement, he understood the essence of the political significance of the communist parties working with the revolutionary national movements in the colonies and semi colonies, in consistent with the instruction of the historic plenary of  the second congress of the third international. 

The ANC remains to be the only national liberation movement in the whole world from amongst the countries of the former colonies and semi colonies, still in alliance with a communist party. We are the only country in the world today, where the communist party and a liberation movement, are still working together in consistence with the revolutionary traditions  of the plenary of the second congress of the third international. We are the only country in the world where a national revolutionary movement and a communist party, are still pursuing common struggles against the worldwide challenges of exploitation and oppression by imperialism and neo colonialism.

Therefore we should always move from the premise of understanding that the only tools and instruments imperialism will apply to appraise the success of our national democratic revolution, is our revolutionary alliance. Our national liberation movement cannot face internal crisis without the involvement of our historical enemy. It therefore very important that we always locate the role of the enemy of our revolution in the cause of our struggles. The main reason why we should strive to unite this Alliance as a precondition for the success of our national democratic revolution.

Our revolutionary Alliance is the life blood of our people and our future generations to come. Our struggles to intensify the second phase of our transition from apartheid colonialism to a national democratic society will be futile without the collective contribution of our revolutionary alliance led by the ANC. Ours is the alliance born out of our common struggles to confront the challenges facing humanity. Our National democratic revolution without the alliance of the ANC, SACP and COSATU will be incomplete.

We welcome the newly elected members of the national executive committee of the ANC under the collective leadership of our President Cde Jacob Zuma. We are confident that the collective of men and women elected into the National Executive Committee will take forward the struggles for the socio economic transformation of the south african people into the future. We are indeed confident that our national liberation movement, our national democratic revolution and too the future of our people are indeed in capable hands.

It is the collective responsibility of all revolutionaries of our movement to raise to the occasion and defend the achievements of the Mangaung conference. Mangaung was a political battle ground to restore the true principles, traditions and values of our glorious national liberation movement. The membership of the ANC has confirmed that our movement is the only true representative of the wishes and aspirations of the overwhelming majority of the people of our country.

The greatest achievement of our centenary conference in Mangaung was the consolidation of the role and centrality of the ANC led alliance, as the cornerstone for the unity and cohesion of our national democratic revolution. The conference also took to the fore the need for the members of the ANC and our revolutionary alliance to adhere themselves to our fundamental principle of democratic centralism.

It is through this fundamental principle of democratic centralism that genuine members of the ANC, under all different material circumstances take the collective responsibility, to respect the internal organizational decisions, irrespective of their own personal choice or preferences. More importantly for all members of the ANC to defend and respect the collective leadership of our movement elected to positions of responsibility.  It is therefore in accordance with this fundamental tradition, that we will be in consistent to the spirit of the proletariat internationalism, that prevailed during the historic plenary of the second congress of the third international. Communist should occupy our forefront trenches to defend the gains of our national democratic revolution.

To be a member of the ANC is a conscious decision we take to sacrifice our own well being and to become selfless servants of our people. Leadership is not an entitlement but an opportunity given by our people and our revolution to learn. We therefore need to combat the growing tendency within the ranks of our movement, of individual moving at a supersonic speed to occupy the positions of responsibility  for their self serving habits. We need to eradicate the growing subculture in our movement of individuals undermining our noble traditions of selfless service to selfish service.

Phatse Justice Piitso is the former ambassador to Cuba and former provincial secretary of the SACP in Limpopo writing on his personal capacity. 

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