Selective application of revolutionary phrases is counter-revolutionary: Response to Irvin Jims lecture In the cause of the forward march of the struggles of our people into our socialist future no amount of the siren songs of the enemy of our revolution will stop our revolutionary alliance. The workers of our country must occupy our forefront trenches of our revolution and ensure that the ANC gets an overwhelming mandate in the forthcoming elections. I refer myself to the political input delivered by Irvin Jim during the occasion of the memorial lecture, dedicated to one of the most illustrious revolutionary leader of our national liberation movement and the late General Secretary of our vanguard Party Cde Joe Slovo, at the Queenstown Local of Cosatu in the Eastern Cape over the past weekend. History has proven that in the midst of a revolutionary situation, the enemy has the propensity to distort our revolutionary theory to defeat our very same revolutionary struggles. Our late stalwart and the revolutionary leader of our party Cde Lawrance Phokanoka would always say that a revolution is the highest form of class struggle. He would always warn us of a revolution at the peril of being led by the unled. I am duty bound in this instance to borrow again the wisdom of the leader of the worlds working class movement Vladimir Lenin, that selective application of revolutionary phrases is counter revolutionary, that we must fight it so that in the future we will not say of us the bitter truth that a revolutionary phrase about a revolutionary war ruined the revolution. It is the political responsibility of the leadership of our revolutionary alliance to transmit the correct theoretical application about our national democratic revolution to the masses of our people. As Slovo states in his seminal work ‘The South African Working Class and the National Democratic Revolution, ‘Without revolutionary theory, there can be no real revolutionary movement. A trade union movement is a great school for the working class. It is by its character and origin a mass democratic organisation which its immediate political task is to awaken the class consciousness of the workers. It is a school of baptism that makes the workers to acquire the first experience of their organised struggles at the shop floor level. It will always be counter-revolutionary to agitate the working class into its traditions of struggles, of singing its songs and slogans, and making repeated calls for the establishment of a socialist republic without a proper theoretical grasp of both the subjective and objective factors of our concrete material conditions. In the current phase of our transition for the radical transformation of our socio economic terrain, the working class is still the most vital component of our national liberation struggles headed by the ANC, partly the reason why the working class must comprehend the nature and the mass character of the ANC as a national liberation movement. A trade union cannot assume political leadership of the working class. The Communist Party is the political vanguard of the working class. It does not just represent the working class in the economic struggles but equally in its relations to all classes in society. The late General Secretary of the SACP Cde Moses Mabhida would state that: Our party relationship with the ANC is based on mutual trust, reciprocity, comradeship in the battle and common struggles for national liberation. Our unity of aims and methods of struggles are a rare instance of positive alignment between the forces of class and liberation. Our revered revolutionary leader, the late President of our liberation movement Cde Oliver Tambo would express the following profound theoretical formulation about our revolutionary alliance: The relationship between the ANC and SACP is not an accident of history, nor is it a natural and inevitable development. Our alliance is the living organism that has grown out of the common struggles. We have built it out of our separate and common experiences. Our revolutionary alliance has been fertilized by blood of countless heroes and heroines, many of them unnamed and unsung. It has been reinforced by a common determination to destroy the enemy and by our shared belief in the certainty of our victory. Today the ANC and the SACP have a common objectives in the eradication of the oppressive and exploitative system that prevails in our country, the seizure of power, and the exercise of our right to self-determination by all people of South Africa. We share the strategic perspectives of the task that lies ahead. It is precisely from this point of view that we repeat ourselves that repeated calls of the slogan for the establishment of a socialist republic without correct analysis of the class balance of forces and a proper theoretical grasp of both the objective and subjective factors of our concrete material circumstances is the highest form of an infantile disorder and has a propensity to a counter-revolution. I have however come to appreciate the complexities of our Marxist-Leninist scientific revolutionary theory. We have come to realise that if not properly assimilated it has the danger to cause constipation. There is growing dangerous phenomenon in our country that to be more revolutionary, you must throw insults at the leadership of our revolutionary alliance and undermine the very heart of our fundamental principle of democratic centralism and inner party discipline. Our revolutionary movement has on many occasions, cleansed itself from the bile of the bladder of the enemy of our revolution in the cause of the struggles of our people against imperialism and colonialism. We will defeat it today and tomorrow. Even if it can take its trumpet high and sing and dance our own songs and slogans, wearing our revolutionary paraphernalia, we will defeat it. Our revolutionary scientific theory has always exposed us to the work of the enemy of our revolution. Our theory has taught us that the enemy of our revolution does not necessarily die. Instead of dying, the enemy will always change its form and character. It will always change its colour like a moving chameleon. Our role is to defend our fortress, our movement is the fortress of our people and our people are the fortress of our revolutionary alliance. History will tell why Irvin Jim has chosen to vulgarise this most profound contribution by our late leader of our party for selfish and opportunistic interests. We have always repeated that selective use of revolutionary phrasing is an expression of ultra-leftism and is therefore counter-revolutionary. I am convinced that the bones of our revered revolutionary leader Cde Slovo, would have reverberated from the grave upon hearing such a web of distortions about one of his finest theoretical interventions he ever contributed in the cause of the struggles of our people against national oppression and exploitation. The thesis by our leader Cde Slovo, on the South African working class and our national democratic revolution presents a deeper theoretical glimpse on the theory and the character of the South African revolution. It defines the interrelationship between the national and class struggles in our specific South African conditions of a Colonialism of a Special Type (CST). The crisis of capitalism is making the working class to resolve the socio-economic contradictions which are not of their own making, partly the reason why imperialism and neo-colonial forces will manipulate the very same character of the trade union movement as a seedbed for counter revolution. International monopoly capital is determined to undermine the rich history of the struggles of the working class movement across the world and more particularly in the former colonies and semi colonies. Southern Africa is the only remaining region in the whole world where former liberation movements who led common struggles of our people in the former colonies and semi-colonies are still in power.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 13:48:13 +0000
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