THE COMMUNIST PARTY IS NOT AN INSTRUMENT OF GOSSIP AND RUMOUR MONGERING 

The response by the national deputy secretary of the young communist league of South Africa Isaac Luthuli caught the attention of many of young South Africans. His response is a reflection of the deteriorating vanguard political leadership role of the South African Communist party under its secretary general Dr Blade Nzimande. 

The feeble response confirms the popular saying that sometimes eagles may fly lower than hens, but hens can never rise to the height of eagles. It is pathetic that a young leader of the calibre of Isaac Luthuli can turn himself into an instrument of gossip and rumour mongering. 

Ambassador Justice Piitso is amongst those of the organic intellectuals within the ranks of our national liberation movement whose contribution to the political growth of many young South African cannot be questioned. His theoretical contribution far surpasses the fabrication of lies, slander and deception from Isaac Luthuli. 

This worrying situation about the role and the direction the party is taking within the body politics of the South African society needs our close scrutiny. The communist party is the most advanced political party of the working class led by the most advanced elements in society. 

I have always wondered why the young communist league ( Komsomol) is carrying the name Ufazimba, which is the secret army of the feudal leader King Shaka. Dr Blade Nzimande the typical warlord has turned himself into the feudal leader King Shaka with the young communist league as his private secret army.

I challenge Isaac Luthuli to rise to the occasion and provide a theoretical basis, clarity and the relevance of the name Ufazimba to the revolutionary struggles of the young people of our country into the future of socialism. I want him to provide clarity on the on the meaning of the name and its significance to our overall struggle for the building of our socialist future.

His political bishops have made the mistake of not having taught him the basic lesson that the most theoretically grounded communists do not play the man but the ball. In his response to the interactions between Ambassador Justice Piitso and Dr Blade Nzimande, he is playing Justice Piitso the man and not the ball. 

The open letter by the Ambassador to the secretary general of the party is not a personal attack but an important opportunity creating a platform for a more robust debate within the ranks of our national liberation movement. In our movement we speak politics and not personalities.

The communist party must be the party of debates and ideas. It must allow  robust debates within its own ranks and our society in general. 

The SMS sent by the secretary general of the party is offensive and very personal. It has deep connotations of personal hatred and revenge. 

Ambassador Justice Piitso is simply clarifying the lies that many of us were fed with over the years. We were made to believe that it was him who invented the allegations that Dr Blade Nzimande is a product of Inkatha Freedom party, the rebel tribalist party of  Mangozuthu Gatsha Buthelezi. 

We were fed with lies that the main reasons why the provincial executive committee of the SACP in Limpopo was disbanded was because of its corrupt leadership which was also weak to implement party programmes. Some of us never knew the truth that amongst other reasons was that they invited former President Thabo Mbeki to address an annual political school in Limpopo.

The same counter revolutionary tendencies we witness today of banning the President of the ANC from addressing the meetings of our alliance partners. A tendency of the Communist party and COSATU wanting to impose their preferred individuals to lead the ANC. 

They have reached a point of even blackmailing the ANC with threats of breaking our revolutionary alliance if those of their preferred individuals are not elected into positions of responsibility. In the words of Ambassador Justice Piitso they have not just turned the party into a faction but a faction of a faction in the ANC. 

The communist party has abandon its role as the vanguard of the struggle of our people into a machinery of character assassination and gossip.  It has become a party which its culture and tradition has become that of labeling and calling people by their own names. 

The allegations by Isaac Luthuli that Ambassador Justice Piitso was recalled from his posting in Cuba lack substance and therefore part of the culture of gossip by the leadership of the party against comrades from within our own ranks. It is a known fact that Ambassador Justice Piitso is a close friend and comrade of the Cuban people. 

He is amongst the imminent South Africans figures who are at the forefront of the international solidarity campaign in support of the struggle of the Cuban people against the US led imperialism. He has always led the campaign for the release of the Cuban five heroes and the end of the more than fifty years economic blockade imposed by the US government against the Cuban nation.

I have read with enthusiasm many of his inspiring articles about the struggle of the Cuban people against imperialism and their heroic acts of solidarity with the people of the world. I personally accompanied him to many occasions invited by senior leaders of the communist party of Cuba and its government when visiting our country. 

I have attended so many courtesy visits with him to the embassy of Cuba and I have seen the level of respects different Ambassadors of the Cuban government accord to him. To them he is their most trusted friend and comrade.

But the call is with the President and the minister of international relations and cooperation to confirm to the nation the allegations from the young communist league that he was recalled from his posting as the representative of our republic in Cuba. Lies often told becomes the truth. 

I personally heard so many good stories about his outstanding leadership role as an Ambassador by various delegations from our country which visited the republic of Cuba during his tenure and from many of our students studying for medicine there. 

Therefore instead of Isaac Luthuli playing the man and not the ball, he must stop his tendencies of being a ringleader of gossip and engage the theoretical basis of the political argument by the Ambassador about the role of imperialism and its influence on the South African society. We see the secret army building socialism through hearsay.

It was indeed a blatant lie for the leader of the party Dr Nzimande to tell workers during the COSATU central committee meeting that the concept of white monopoly capital is not part of the vocabulary of our revolutionary movement. It was a lie and it will continue to be a lie. 

Instead of being personal and writing the Ambassador SMSs driven by jealousy and vengeance, as a leader of the vanguard party, he was supposed to respond to the important political question posed to him through in the open letter. It was painful to see the leader of the party degenerating to such levels of political hopelessness and despair. 

I am still shocked that Dr Blade Nzimande could refer such a profound and rich theoretical open letter to be a nasty letter. Is it true that our scientific revolutionary theory can be so nasty?. 

We are encouraged by those of our leaders who still take political education as the backbone of the unity of our struggle and our people. We are encouraged by those who still have time to engage in robust political debates, those who are still determined to write and educate young South Africans about their history and the future.

We understand well that the past twenty three years of our democratic dispensation was an epoch of reconciliation and nation building. We also understand that the new struggle of the present epoch of our transition, is the struggle for economic freedom and emancipation. 

Therefore our struggle against monopoly imperialism is the struggle for the total liberation of our people. The freedom of the young people of our country is economic emancipation. 

The communist party is not a vanguard of gossip and rumour mongering but the political party of the struggle of the working class. It is comprised of the most advanced elements in society. 

When people meet challenges in the ANC and our society in general, they will ask as to where is the communist party. It is not the culture of the communist party to threaten to break the Alliance when it confronts problem in the coarse of the struggle. 

The party is the first to appreciate the importance of the unity of our revolutionary Alliance. The communist which can apply the laws of Marxism Leninism correctly to determine the balance of forces at a particular historical period. 

Therefore the decision by the party to consider contesting elections on its own against the ANC is not just counter revolutionary but a true reflection of its weak leadership under Dr Blade Nzimande. Communist are the first to appreciate that the objective realities of the current period warrant the unity of the ANC and revolutionary alliance more than ever before.

It is the first to understand that the balance of forces both in our country and the world are not in favour of the communist party thinking of taking political power in a capitalist country like South Africa. The attempts are just opportunistic tendencies to blackmail the leadership of the ANC for their own selfish interest. 

If indeed they want to leave the ANC let them volunteer and resign from their deployments in the various layers of our democratic government. If indeed their are true to their conscience, the entourage of opportunists led by Dr Blade must resign as cabinet ministers, mecs and mayors. 

Cde Thabo Kupa is the former provincial secretary of the ANC youth league Gauteng province and former member of the ANC youth league national executive committee, writing in his personal capacity.