SACP message of support to the MKLWV Inaugural National Conference
SACP Communications
South African Communist Party
SACP message of support to the MKLWV Inaugural National Conference
Delivered by SACP Central Committee member, Comrade Tebogo Phadu, 16 January 2026
Defending the Legacy of Umkhonto weSizwe: Unity, Renewal and the Unfinished Task of Liberation
Comrades,
Allow me, at the outset, to extend revolutionary greetings to all delegates and veterans gathered at this historic First National Elective Conference of the uMkhonto weSizwe Liberation War Veterans.
I wish to convey special greetings to the Deputy President of the African National Congress, Comrade Paul Mashatile, to our former President, Comrade Thabo Mbeki, and to Comrade Thenji Mthintso, a veteran of the movement and a steadfast servant of our liberation struggle.
Before we proceed further, we must salute the leadership and cadres of the uMkhonto weSizwe Liberation War Veterans who carried the responsibility of organising, rebuilding, and guiding this formation toward this First National Elective Conference. This work required patience, resilience, and political maturity under difficult conditions. It demanded unity over division, organisation over disorder, and principle over convenience. The convening of this conference is itself an achievement of collective leadership and disciplined struggle, and it deserves recognition.
We meet here today not merely as individuals, and not merely as an organisation, but as custodians of a proud and disciplined revolutionary tradition. We meet in the shadow - and in the light - of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the spear of the nation, forged in sacrifice, tempered in struggle, and carried forward by generations who placed the freedom of the people above their own lives.
As we gather, we recall with reverence the towering leaders and commanders who shaped MK and guided it through its most difficult years:
· Comrade Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, who helped give birth to MK and embodied revolutionary courage and moral authority.
· Comrade Oliver Reginald Tambo, the Commander-In-Chief in exile, whose steady leadership sustained the movement through repression and exile.
· Comrade Joe Slovo, the strategist and revolutionary intellectual who insisted that the gun must always serve politics and the people.
· Comrade Chris Hani, the fearless commander whose clarity, discipline, and closeness to the masses made him a symbol of revolutionary hope.
And we also acknowledge with deep respect living commanders and cadres among us today, including Comrade Siphiwe Nyanda, who carried the heavy responsibility of military command with discipline, loyalty, and unwavering commitment to the movement - and who continues to serve the people in the present.
We further honour the many more comrades, known and unknown, living and departed, who gave their youth, their freedom, and in many cases their lives, so that South Africa could be free.
These leaders and cadres did not treat MK as an ornament of history. They built it as a serious, disciplined instrument of liberation, guided by political principle, collective leadership, and internationalist solidarity. It is their legacy - not as myth, but as responsibility - that brings us together today.
I bring revolutionary greetings from the Central Committee and the Political Bureau of the South African Communist Party. I am honoured to address this historic conference as a comrade-in-arms, a member of the Central Committee, and a member of the Political Bureau of the SACP.
This conference takes place at a moment of profound historical significance. It is not simply an organisational milestone for the MKLWV. It is a political intervention into the unfinished struggle for liberation in our country. It is a declaration that the legacy of uMkhonto we Sizwe is not a museum piece, not a ceremonial memory, but a living revolutionary heritage rooted in discipline, sacrifice, and collective responsibility to the people.
uMkhonto we Sizwe was born not out of adventurism, but out of historical necessity. It was forged when all peaceful avenues of struggle had been violently closed by the apartheid regime. It was guided by a clear political understanding: that armed struggle was subordinate to politics, and that the gun must always be guided by the political leadership of the liberation movement and the aspirations of the oppressed masses. This principle remains non-negotiable today.
The SACP affirms, without hesitation, that MK was never a factional instrument, never a vehicle for personal accumulation, and never detached from the political authority of the liberation movement. MK was a people’s army, rooted in internationalism, anti-imperialism, and an unwavering commitment to a non-racial, democratic, and socialist future. Any attempt to erode this legacy, to commercialise it, or to turn it into a ladder for narrow interests is a betrayal of those who fell in combat, in detention, in exile, and in the underground.
The theme of this conference correctly speaks of unity, renewal, and the unfinished task of liberation. Unity is not an abstract slogan. It is a concrete organisational and political task. It requires discipline, democratic practice, collective leadership, and the rejection of personality cults, parallel structures, and opportunism. Renewal does not mean abandoning revolutionary principles; it means returning to them with greater clarity under new conditions.
The unfinished task of liberation confronts us daily in mass unemployment, landlessness, poverty, inequality, corruption, and the continued dominance of monopoly capital over the economy.
The conditions faced by many military veterans today constitute a moral indictment of the post-apartheid political economy. Veterans who once endured hardship, danger, and sacrifice in defence of the people now face unemployment, insecure housing, inadequate healthcare, psychological trauma, and exclusion from meaningful economic participation. This is not accidental. It is the outcome of a class-contested post-apartheid South Africa that left intact an economic structure in which ownership, control, and accumulation remain overwhelmingly concentrated, while the majority - still largely black and working-class - are confined to insecurity, dispossession, and dependence on low-wage labour.
The SACP fully supports the MKLWV’s focus on social welfare, economic empowerment, heritage and memorialisation, organisational renewal, and the fight against corruption. These are not separate issues. They are interconnected fronts of struggle. Economic empowerment must not be reduced to tenders and patronage networks. It must be rooted in productive activity, worker and community ownership, cooperatives, land reform, and strategic state intervention in key sectors of the economy.
In this regard, the SACP stresses that cooperatives, state-led development, and public ownership are not welfare measures. They are instruments of structural transformation. Military veterans must be at the forefront of building socially owned enterprises in agriculture, manufacturing, mining rehabilitation, logistics, housing, and community infrastructure - not as junior partners to capital, but as organised producers serving the people.
The renewal of the MKLWV must also be a moral renewal. Corruption is counter-revolutionary. It corrodes unity, undermines public confidence, and weakens the liberation movement from within. The traditions of MK - discipline, accountability, humility, and collective leadership - must be restored and defended without compromise. There can be no tolerance for criminality, factional capture, or abuse of the name of MK for personal gain.
The SACP reiterates its commitment to the strategic alliance as a historical and political instrument of struggle. At the same time, unity cannot be built on silence in the face of failure. A revolutionary Alliance requires principled engagement, honesty, and the courage to confront weaknesses within our movement and the state. The MKLWV has a vital role to play as a disciplined, principled, and politically conscious force within this broader struggle.
As you elect new leadership, we urge you to choose cadres of integrity, political clarity, organisational capacity, and proven commitment to collective leadership. Leadership is not a reward; it is a responsibility. It is not a platform for status; it is a burden of service.
The South African Communist Party has been clear and unapologetic about its decision to contest elections, particularly at local government level. This decision must be properly understood. It is not a rejection of the Alliance, nor is it an act of fragmentation. It is a tactical expression of struggle under present conditions, informed by the realities facing our communities and the working class.
We have taken this decision because local government has become a decisive site of struggle. It is where people experience the state most directly - through water, electricity, housing, sanitation, roads, clinics, and public employment. It is also where corruption, neoliberal outsourcing, and the erosion of public services have done the most damage. To retreat from this terrain would be to abandon communities to decay, patronage, and private profiteering.
Our participation in elections is therefore a call for renewal, accountability, and people-centred governance, rooted in mass organisation and community participation. Where we contest and where we govern, we advance a clear programme: the insourcing of workers; the defence and rebuilding of public services; the release of land for housing and productive use; support for cooperatives and community-owned enterprises; and a decisive struggle against corruption.
Let us be clear: the Alliance is a strategic Alliance, forged in struggle and rooted in a shared historical mission. It is not a tactical arrangement to be picked up or discarded depending on electoral convenience. Strategic unity, however, does not mean silence in the face of failure, nor does it mean postponing working-class initiatives indefinitely. On the contrary, it requires honest engagement, political clarity, and decisive action to restore the Alliance’s relevance among the masses.
The SACP’s electoral participation must therefore be understood as a contribution to Alliance renewal, not its weakening. It is part of rebuilding popular confidence in progressive politics, reasserting the primacy of the working class, and reconnecting the liberation movement with the everyday struggles of the people.
The liberation struggle did not end in 1994. It entered a new phase. The enemy today is not only the remnants of apartheid, but an economic system in which wealth, land, and productive assets remain concentrated in a few hands, reproducing patterns of inequality and exclusion rooted in our colonial and apartheid past. The historic mission of uMkhonto we Sizwe - to defend the people and secure their liberation - therefore remains profoundly relevant.
The South African Communist Party salutes the MKLWV for convening this historic conference, for asserting organisational discipline, and for reclaiming the revolutionary meaning of military veteranhood. We stand with you in defence of MK’s legacy, in the struggle for unity and renewal, and in completing the unfinished task of liberation.
Forward to a united, disciplined, and revolutionary MKLWV!
Forward to working-class power!
Forward to a socialist future!
Amandla!