Statement on the 30th annual commemoration of Joe Slovo
SACP South African Communist Party
South African Communist Party
Statement on the 30th annual commemoration of Joe Slovo
Avalon Cemetery, 6 January 2025
(Acknowledgements – protocol list)
Let us start by wishing all of you present here and the masses of our country at large a healthy, prosperous and peaceful 2025.
We wish to thank all workers who were on duty to ensure our people enjoyed the festive period, despite the mess of our economy by capital, especially the transport sector, inclusive of taxis, police, traffic, health care workers, the retail and hospitality sector, the entertainment sector, and all workers who sacrificed time to be with their time to make sure we had a ball of a festive season.
Dear Comrades and Friends,
We started by renewing our commitment to remain close to the families of our liberation struggle heroes and heroines as part of the 30th anniversary commemorative activities to be held for the next twelve months. We visited the family of our heroic guerrilla Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu in Mamelodi; here in SOWETO we visited the families of Commander Barney Molokoane and Combatant Linda 'Lion of Chiawelo' Jabane, Jerry ‘Tshepo' Semudi, and King Sibiya.
Amongst issues raised by families are reparations for families and the continued suffering faced by many former MK combatants and those of other liberation armies, whilst the Department of Military Veterans is moving at a snail’s pace to address these issues.
30th Commemoration since the passing (death) of Joe Slovo
Today, we gather at Avalon Cemetery to honour Joe Slovo, a revolutionary giant whose life was dedicated to the National Democratic Anti-imperialist Revolutionary struggle for people’s liberation, non-racialism, equality, freedom, justice and peace – as the road towards socialism. Thirty years since his passing on 6 January 1995, his legacy continues to inspire our Marxist-Leninist struggle.
Born as Yossel Mashel Slovo on 23 May 1926 in Obelai, Luthuania, Slovo’s journey to South Africa at the age of nine would mark the beginning of his lifelong commitment to the working class and its struggles. His childhood suffering forced him to start work at a warehouse as a young man of sixteen years, where he met the real life of capitalist exploitation.
He joined the trade union to lessen the exploitation and fight for a living wage and safe working conditions for workers. He became a shopfloor steward and even led a worker’s strike, which, on reflection, benefitted white workers more than all workers. This widened his understanding of the deep connection between national oppression, class exploitation and gender domination from which he committed himself to fight against the source system of oppression. He became a key leader of both the SACP, ANC and our joint liberation army, uMkhonto weSizwe, for which he was one of the key founder members and later served as its Chief of Staff.
Let’s confront the pressing challenges affecting the working class in SA. (The conditions of the working class in SA)
As we commemorate Slovo’s life, we must also confront the pressing challenges affecting the working class in South Africa today. The majority of our people live in dire poverty and in degrading conditions caused primarily and historically by monopoly capital, though not exclusively. Despite the recent decrease in the official unemployment rate to 32.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2024, unemployment remains alarmingly high, with the expanded definition, which includes discouraged work seekers, at 41.9 per cent. Youth unemployment is particularly severe, with a rate of 45.5 per cent among individuals aged 15-34 years.
Poverty continues to plague our nation. As of 2024, approximately 13.2 million South Africans are living in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $2.15 per day, equivalent to R18.78 recently. Furthermore, nearly 63 per cent of the population lives below the upper-middle-income poverty line, indicating widespread economic hardship. This is a national crisis and cannot be resolved by repeating the same failed neo-liberal policies, no matter what costumes you dress them with.
The working class faces the dual burden of exploitation and its associated conditions, results and levers of the accumulation of wealth on a capitalist basis – inequality, unemployment and poverty, which are at crisis-high rates. Closely related to the high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality is rampant crime, a manifestation of the systemic decay inherent in a profit-driven society. Violent crime, including gender-based violence, femicide and murders, thrives in conditions of poverty, inequality, unemployment and social alienation created by capitalist exploitation. The destruction of public infrastructure, driven by organised criminal networks and neglect, robs the working class of essential services, deepening their hardships and further entrenching working-class misery.
Gender-based violence and femicide reflect the entrenched patriarchal relations perpetuated by capitalism. These crimes target women, mostly, but not only, in working-class communities, perpetuating cycles of trauma and reinforcing gender inequality.
We must streamline achieving gender equality in everything we do, including the programmes we outline in this statement, and intensify the struggle to end gender-based violence in all its forms, working together with the communities and government.
Taking a cue from Slovo
Let’s take our cue from Slovo. As a founding member and later Chief of Staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Slovo’s leadership was vital in the armed resistance against apartheid. His strategic brilliance and theoretical contributions shaped our revolutionary path. In his seminal work, “The South African Working Class and the National Democratic Revolution”, he highlighted the inseparable bond between national liberation and class struggle. Slovo argued that the defeat of apartheid was only the first step towards a socialist transformation of society.
Slovo’s commitment to gender equality was revolutionary. He recognised that true liberation required the dismantling of patriarchal systems alongside the overthrow of capitalism. His analysis placed women’s emancipation at the heart of the broader struggle for social justice.
In addition, we face a situation where mass murders, a growing scourge in our society, further destabilise working-class neighbourhoods and intensify feelings of insecurity. This must end.
Tackling crime as a crisis that is out of control
Also, crime in general as a crisis that went out of control extended to public infrastructure, with the deliberate sabotage and looting of essential services crippling schools, hospitals and rail transport systems that the working class has relied on for years. These acts of destruction are not just criminal; they are class warfare by other means, perpetuating systemic inequalities and undermining the capacity of the state to provide for its people. Related to all this is the neo-liberal policy of tenderisation. Functions that were performed by state structures before, such as in rail infrastructure, were broken down into pieces and awarded to tenderpreneurs. Neo-liberalism has effectively destroyed the state. We should summon the will to rebuild the state from local government level. The system has collapsed and is generally dysfunctional.
Confronting these realities requires a revolutionary programme that unites the working class to confront the capitalist system at its root. Only through the establishment of a socialist society, where human needs take precedence over profits, can we decisively address the structural conditions that give rise to crime, insecurity and exploitation; and a collapsing state that makes the pathetic bad fellas in business look better.
Progress and regression in economic development
While working-class people in our country realised commendable progress from human rights to social advances following our hard-won April 1994 democratic breakthrough, it is a fact that in economic terms progress has been very slow and even reversing, largely because the democratic state is gradually withdrawing from the economy in favour of private capital. This stagnation results from several factors, including the persisting legacy of colonial and apartheid oppression, the capitalist domination of the economy and the ruthless exploitation of workers. Added to this is the dominance of neo-liberalism and a hostile international atmosphere marked by imperialist dominance and recurring global crises reflective of a general crisis of imperialism today, which is disintegrating; we should not be its anchor but rather hasten its demise.
Economic exclusion of the majority
In ownership and control, the economy in our country remains dominated by a tiny capitalist minority, who are largely white and male. Domestic economic structures still reflect the oppressive legacy of colonialism and apartheid, built on the super-exploitation of the majority and reinforced by entrenched patriarchal relations. This capitalist-driven system generates mass unemployment, poverty and inequality, which, in our country at present, are at crisis levels, affecting millions of working-class people. These structural injustices, shaped by the historical and ongoing class struggle, have deep racial and gender dimensions, further entrenching the economic and social oppression of the majority by a minority in race, class and gender dimensions. This situation can be reversed with a political will and not weak reasons why things cannot be done differently. But comrades, the difficult situation will be normalised and continue, not be reversed, if South African politics remains detached from society, driven by the aloofness of the political elites – who have become compradorial – working for foreign interests through domestic capital – by imbedding their interests.
Joining Slovo in analysing today’s challenges, we can further say that the political elites have stolen the people’s politics and its dividends. This has generated a strong public resentment to politics and political participation, as in recent elections. And further surrendered it (politics) to capital and further used political office through bourgeoisie policies to impose the public debt on the poor. So, in our beloved country, the historical injustice is not fully applied in the political economy of justice and restorative justice of the dispossessed, of their livelihoods, especially the land. We have a democracy that has not developed a relationship with the political economy of South Africa. In other words, what is the source of poverty and inequality in South Africa, and how to address these rather than simply labelling or referring to it as a problem? Monopoly capital is the primary source, so deal with it. If allowed to dominate, as is the case, you lose relevance in political office.
This worrying situation, of excluding the majority from the role in the economy – and economic dividend, stands in direct contradiction to the national imperative of transforming South Africa into a truly non-racial and non-sexist society characterised by democracy, economic prosperity and social emancipation. The working class must unite and mobilise to lead a revolutionary transformation of these conditions. The SACP remains steadfast in its commitment to deepen and defend this struggle. We reaffirm our revolutionary duty to ensure that the people, particularly the working-class majority, truly share in the wealth of the country. We are ready to lead such an unavoidable working-class revolution in the great war against capital. It is a historic task of all communists, and we will fulfil it or die trying – to fulfil it.
Slovo affirmed the superiority of socialism over the barbarism of capitalism
In his essay, “Has Socialism Failed?”, Slovo confronted the challenges faced by the socialist movement worldwide. He reaffirmed the revolutionary superiority of socialism and called for a principled return to the foundations of Marxism-Leninism. His vision for a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society towards socialism remains a guiding light for our revolution.
As we commemorate Joe Slovo’s life and contributions, we reaffirm our commitment to and the inseparability of the National Democratic Revolution and socialism. In this regard, we reaffirm that our ultimate goal is the establishment of a socialist society, free from exploitation and oppression. Joe Slovo’s legacy demands that we intensify the struggle for workers’ rights, gender equality and the complete eradication of capitalist exploitation. Let us honour his memory by continuing the fight with determination, courage and unwavering resolve.
Neo-liberal structural reform ideology and our policy space
The SACP has consistently expressed its militant opposition to the neo-liberal structural reform ideology driven by imperialist-controlled institutions, domestic and foreign monopoly capital, as well as an array of aspirant and comprador bourgeoisie who have lined themselves up to benefit from the associated deals, using the state.
The neo-liberal structural reform ideology is now being increasingly embedded in our country’s public policy space under the dominant economic policy thinking within the GNU, which includes the reactionary DA, a party opposed to the National Democratic Revolution and socialism. While this direction is not new, and we have been opposing it, the GNU, especially the inclusion of the neo-liberal DA in it, is, in economic policy and restructuring terms, essentially an elite pact to advance the problematic neoliberal structural reform ideology.
We should reject imperialist forces’ back entry into our society
The imperialist forces, alongside both the dominant domestic and foreign sections of capital, seek to entrench their stranglehold over South Africa’s economy through the neo-liberal structural reform agenda. They are hellbent on insinuating private capital accumulation interests and their profit-driven competition in vital infrastructure network sectors that have up to now (hitherto) belonged to the state in terms of ownership, operations and revenue. These sectors include electricity generation, railways, ports and foundational telecommunications infrastructure, such as the high radio frequency spectrum, a productive national asset which has now been privatised through an auction to the highest bidders.
By no means are these sectors the only targets, considering the far-reaching implications of the post-1996 economic shock therapy, the micro-economic liberalisation agenda, restrictive monetary policy and austerity in fiscal policy. All these can be changed. They are not Godly ordained – but if we had the collective leadership able to listen to the concerns of the poor and to the chilling cries of children suffering from hunger.
We fully reject neo-liberalism
The SACP is on the record rejecting neo-liberalism in all its manifestations. The working class must rise in unified resistance to attacks on our democratic sovereignty and path for structural transformation and development of our economy. We must intensify the battle against austerity, a hallmark of neo-liberalism in fiscal policy, and advance a programme of broad-based industrialisation. We need a revolutionary shift towards growing working-class and democratic state control in the economy as part of structural transformation. The economy must serve the people as a whole, not the profits of parasitic and compradorial capitalist elites and their hangers-on. This cannot happen without the dominant role of the state in the economy.
Our struggle emphasises large-scale public economic and social infrastructure development and maintenance. A thriving public economy, underpinned by a caring social policy, is essential to uplift the working class and address their material needs. This includes the decisive implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI) to ensure quality healthcare for all, alongside a comprehensive social security system with a universal basic income grant. The battle for uncompromised, holistic implementation of transformative policies, such as the NHI and the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act, is inseparable from our broader struggle to defend the National Democratic Revolution and advance towards socialism.
Structural transformation across the economy must be driven by national production development principles. This includes ensuring domestic beneficiation of our mineral wealth and expanding and diversifying agro-processing as part of broad-based industrialisation. These sectors and the commanding heights of our economy must be transformed and developed in ways that prioritise the interests of the working class, being the majority of our people, and lifting all those who are in poverty out of poverty.
We must build an economy based on a shared growth trajectory in both the distribution and redistribution of income from production and trade. This must lead to economic emancipation and freedom from imperialist domination, exploitation and policy direction. The basic wealth and resources of our country must be placed at the disposal of the people as a whole, as opposed to being manipulated by sections of individuals, be they black or white, or black and white.
In the same vein, we must intensify our struggle against all forms of state capture and corruption. States capture and corruption have set our country back for many years. As things stand, we will take a long time to recover from the damage caused by state capture and other forms of corruption. These problems have not stopped, besides the fact that many domestic players and multinational corporations that were involved or complicit in state capture and corruption are far from being held accountable.
Against Cogta retrenching workers aged 55 years and older from the community work programme
As the SACP, we vehemently denounce the National Treasury-driven, government-endorsed, neo-liberal austerity that has led to the retrenchment of workers aged 55 years and above from the 225,000-community work programme workforce under the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta). This callous policy betrays the ANC-led Alliance’s May 2024 election manifesto-commitment to create and sustain 2.5 million work opportunities through public employment programmes.
Instead of employment creation, the retrenchments by the government will deepen the suffering of workers already on the economic margins. On 24 December 2024, Cogta gave the affected workers a mere seven days-termination of employment notice. How can this be considerate, really? How the government has allowed Cogta to treat those affected will inevitably come back to haunt it. It is unconscionable that those who have dedicated their lives to serving communities are being cast aside, while the very architects of these cuts, some themselves over 55 years old, remain comfortably entrenched in government positions.
We call for urgent dialogue on strengthening public employment programmes as part of the wider national apex priority to create employment and as part of advancing towards the Freedom Charter’s right of all to work. In addition, equal treatment of workers, including equal pay and conditions for work of the same value, is among decent work principles. Therefore, to transform public employment programmes towards decent work programmes, the pay and conditions of the workers in public employment programmes must align with those of other workers performing work with the same value.
Crisis of working-class representation
While the relations of capitalist exploitation and inequality still deprive the working class of the ownership and control of the means of production arising from its labour in production and trade, a crisis of working-class representation has emerged in our country. This crisis is now severely disadvantaging the working class in the political and economic affairs of our country, over and above marginalisation by the capitalist logic in ownership and control of the means of production and its consequences, such as the persisting high levels of unemployment, poverty, inequality and crime.
As a key indicator of the crisis of working-class representation, the working class – for example, its organised formations within our own Alliance – were entirely excluded from informing the programmatic basis of the statement of intent and from participation in the negotiations that culminated in the formation of the government of the day. Neo-liberal dominance in our policy space is among the key indicators of the crisis of working-class representation.
Independence and Alliance reconfiguration
In the same vein, the reconfiguration of the Alliance has not materialised, despite over 22 years of our efforts to achieve it through comradely engagements. This and addressing the crisis of working-class representation are among the key factors behind our 15th National Congress resolution, reaffirmed by our Fifth Special National Congress in December 2024, to contest the 2026 local government elections independently. We have long reserved the right to exercise this direction, making it a mechanism of the last resort, when all else we have tried has not brought the reconfiguration of the Alliance to fruition.
Prior to the Fifth Special National Congress, we held a bilateral session with the ANC to discuss post-election implications for the NDR. We formally informed the ANC of our intentions to implement this resolution given the dismal failure to reconfigure the alliance. We will continue the talks with all our allies now based on the outcomes of the Special National Congress that re-affirmed our 15th National Congress decision.
In no particular way does exercising our independence as a working-class party mean we are abandoning the Alliance we have built since the late 1920s. To be clear, we do not have a single resolution to leave the Alliance. This Alliance was not founded on electoral contestations. It was not based on supporting only one Alliance partner once we have achieved the right to hold regular democratic elections. Nor was it anchored in supporting one Alliance partner so that it can make unilateral decisions instead of Alliance consensus-seeking consultation, participatory democracy and inclusive approaches.
Our Alliance is a strategic alliance of both interdependent and independent partners. Emphasising one of these two anchors of the Alliance at the expense of the other will be a serious error for revolutionaries to commit.
As things stand, without Alliance reconfiguration, the independence of its organised working-class formations interested in securing the interconnected success of the National Democratic Revolution and deepening the advance towards a socialist society stands to be compromised more and more. This will go against and is completely undesirable for the revolution and the SACP as an independent working-class party.
We also want to take this opportunity to dismiss and reject the misleading notion that our Party must limit itself to securing influence within the ANC as its historical mission. This notion is devoid of an appreciation of the Alliance’s character as a national democratic revolutionary front made up of independent organisations. Instead of influence from one direction, ours is an alliance of mutual influence by its independent partners. This balances the independence and interdependence anchors of the Alliance without stopping any Alliance partner from pursuing its historical mission.
Building a strong party of the working class for effective participation in the 2026 local government elections
As we commemorate the life and contributions of Joe Slovo, we reaffirm our commitment to strengthen the vanguard attributes and role of the SACP as an independent working-class Party committed to the success of the National Democratic Revolution and deepening the advance towards socialism. We shall build the Party to become ever stronger, disciplined and both ideologically and politically grounded, capable of effectively representing the working class on all fronts of the struggle and at all levels, to end the crisis of working-class representation.
We shall intensify working-class mobilisation, grassroots organising, and both targeted and mass political education to ensure that our participation in the 2026 local government elections, which we have resolved to contest within our own right, exercising our independence, leads to transformative, working-class-led local governance. Our participation in elections must contribute to our programme to challenge the structures of capitalist exploitation and its neo-liberal agenda on all fronts, to advance the completion of the National Democratic Revolution and to secure a deepening advance towards a socialist society – in which the exploitation of one person by another shall be eliminated.
Popular left front and a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor
Ours is not a programme of reformism but a call to revolutionary action, transformation and development. To achieve emancipation, the working class has no option but to organise itself as a class and mobilise to confront and dismantle the capitalist structures under which it is exploited, and a tiny minority enriches themselves.
The SACP reaffirms its commitment to lead this struggle, united with other revolutionary and progressive forces, in the revolutionary spirit of Joe Slovo and the revolutionary legacy he embodied. To this end, we reaffirm our programme to forge a popular left front and build a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor.
International solidarity
The SACP reiterates its calls for the United States to end its illegal blockade of Cuba and occupation of Guantanamo Bay and to remove Cuba from the so-called list of countries sponsoring terrorism. The United States compiles the list unilaterally, without any democratic, multilateral mandate. It is a pretext to maintain imperialist aggression, including illegal sanctions outside the multilateral United Nations framework. The US undermines the United Nations by not implementing UN resolutions to end the illegal blockade of Cuba, among other things. We stand with the revolutionary government and people of Cuba and strongly condemn the imperialist regime of the United States.
We strongly denounce the oppressive autocratic regime in Swaziland for human rights violations and repression of democracy and communist activists. We pledge our solidarity with the oppressed Swazi people and support their calls for democratisation, release of political prisoners, return of exiles and transition to democracy.
The hardships faced by the Saharawi people under Morocco’s occupation are immense, compounded by the complicity of imperialist France and Spain. Together with Morocco, the two imperialist regimes want to stop at nothing to maintain the oppression and dispossession of the Saharawi people, to exploit their natural resource and political economy of Western Sahara.
We call for our people to extend a hand of friendship and solidarity with the people of Sudan who are in a war of elites’ interest to control the wealth of society. We call for an immediate end to the devastating war in Sudan, which disproportionately affects women, children and the displaced, including men.
The SACP also reaffirms its solidarity with FRELIMO and the people of Mozambique. Once again, we congratulate FRELIMO on their recent electoral victory in Mozambique. We strongly condemn any attempts to destabilise Mozambique. Imperialist-backed forces are often involved in such destabilisations.
Similarly, we congratulate SWAPO on its electoral victory in Namibia and support its ongoing efforts towards fundamental transformation.
The SACP welcomes the shift towards the left in Botswana, with the Umbrella for Democratic Change’s victory. The Umbrella for Democratic Change is an alliance inclusive of, among others, the Botswana National Front. We welcome the recent announcements by the newly elected Botswana President, Duma Boko, of progressive policies on poverty reduction in the diamond-rich country. We wish him well in his tenure as President of Botswana.
We pledge solidarity with the Sahel region in their struggle for full independence from France and imperialist domination. This must be viewed as part of the Second Phase of the African Revolution.
We stand with the peoples of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and others in South America against US imperialist aggression. We support and will be represented at the inauguration of Venezuela’s democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro in the next few days. We strongly condemn the US-led imperialist interference, attempts at destabilising Venezuela and the imperialist policy of regime change.
Our solidarity with Palestine remains firm against the apartheid Israeli settler regime’s occupation and genocide, and we stand with the axis of resistance across the Middle East against Israeli aggression and US-led imperialism. We stand firm with the people of Palestine for the Freedom of historical Palestine and against the expropriation of Palestinian land by the occupying apartheid Israeli regime. Together with its automatic imperialist backer, the US, the apartheid Israeli settler regime wants to stop at nothing to maintain its oppression of the Palestinian people and exploit their land and natural resources, including offshore gas resources.
Similarly, the SACP condemns Israeli attacks on Yemen and pledges solidarity with the people of Syria and Lebanon in their fight against foreign occupation and terrorism.
We call on the world working class and progressive forces to strengthen the rising multipolar movement for a just, peaceful world order, free from imperialist exploitation.
The SACP welcomes China’s rise as a significant force in global multipolarity towards a just world order.
The Russian anti-imperialist response in the war provoked by NATO countries in Ukraine is another vital indicator of the shift towards global multipolarity. Russia has demonstrated its capability to stand out against the US-led imperialist collect West. Yes, it is the US-led imperialist collective West that provoked the war in Ukraine through, among others, a coup and eastwards expansion targeting Russia and ultimately China. This emerged as part of the imperialists’ agenda to build totalitarian control of global resources and economy.
In closing comrades let me highlight the brief outcome of our Special National Congress
· The immediate task of the working class today is to free itself from the cocoon of compradorial politics, characterised by elite driven representative democracy.
· Embrace the agenda for transformative change of our material living conditions for the better, by freeing our revolution from the cocoon of colonial entrapment development trajectory – in other words resolve the national grievance today which is to drive change to improve lives of the people.
· It is in this regard that we should actively participate in the National Dialogue to shape its outcomes as the working class forces so that the bourgeoisie do not become the only shapers of such an important task of society.
· The moment we are in represents the dire lack of working-class representation in governance and in the state and other such important levers of power. We can no longer survive like this.
· We call on all our branches to refine their strategies to implement our political program – the South African Struggle for Socialism
· To prepare effective participation in the coming local government elections.
· All our members must embrace the organisational renewal framework on serving the people first, the revolution first and the Party first.
· Build Party structures in all communities to safeguard the interests of the working class and give strength to the struggle for self-reliance of our communities.
The revolution belongs to the people, and they are the ultimate barometer if it works. We shall be judged by our deeds on the ground. Socialism or capitalist barbarism!
Amandla!