‘Stalin’ played vital part in Struggle
Veteran Mtshali took part in major MK operations
Born: November 20 1933, in Clermont, Durban Died: October 12
Funeral: On Sunday at Sugar Ray Xulu Stadium in Clermont Eric Mtshali, 84, who was affectionately known as “Comrade Stalin”, was born in Clermont, Durban, in 1933.
He was a recipient of the National Order of Mendi for Bravery in Silver.
At its 14th congress in July last year, the SACP conferred its exceptional award, the Moses Kotane Award, on Mtshali and thus making him a lifetime member of the party’s central committee.
Mtshali attended schools in Clermont, and was introduced to the Struggle as a high school learner by Wilson Cele, then SACP district secretary in Durban. Mtshali was an amateur boxer at school.
His last fight happened after meeting Cele, who asked him about his future plans. He then introduced Mtshali to the local ratepayers association.
Its meetings were actually ANC meetings. Cele worked with Harry Gwala, Stephen Dlamini and MP Naicker. Their work led to Mtshali joining the SACP in 1957.
At that time the party was underground following its banning by the apartheid regime in 1950. It therefore operated underground. He joined the ANC a year after his recruitment to the SACP.
By this time, he had already started accumulating experience of working in mass organisations, having become a trade unionist at the age of 18 in 1950-1951. He worked as a casual labourer, loading and unloading goods from ships.
It was at this time that he started attending political classes and workshops organised by his union – the Dock and Harbour Workers’ Union.
As a young man, Mtshali had an idea of following a career that will help him make money, but Cele was not convinced. As part of his work, he gave Mtshali a pamphlet titled “The Three Sources and Three Components Parts of Marxism”, authored by Vladimir Lenin, the historic leader of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917.
Cele succeeded in convincing Mtshali to change his mind. Thanks to a section in the pamphlet stating that people have always been victims of deceit and that will remain so until they conduct an inquiry into the class interests that underpin economic and other social phenomena.
Comrade Stalin became involved in the founding of the SA Congress of Trade Unions (Sactu), which was founded in March 1955. Sactu became part of the Congress Alliance.
While in theory the alliance was legally made up of five legal formations, in practice the underground SACP, from which Mtshali was receiving systematic training, was the sixth.
Its members and leaders were active in the other congress formations and participated in organising the Congress of the People that adopted the Freedom Charter in 1955.
Mtshali was one of volunteers who collected the freedom demands that led to the writing of Freedom Charter.
He was among the first cadres to join MK. He left SA in 1962 and went into exile without an opportunity to inform his family. He was deployed to the Soviet Union and Cuba for training. He was appointed chief of personnel, working under Moses Kotane, JB Marks and Moses Mabhida at the MK base in Tanzania in 1971. In the same year he was elected to the SACP central committee.
“The Man of Steel”, as he was also known, participated in major MK operations throughout its existence. He organised trade unions under the World Federation of Trade Unions in Africa. He co-founded the Communist Party of Lesotho with Joe Matthews and Lesotho icon Mokhafisi Kena.
He returned from exile in 1991 and worked as the KZN crime intelligence provincial deputy commissioner from 1995 to 1999, ANC ward councillor (2000-2004), and ANC MP (2004-2014). Up until his death, he played an important role in political education and ideological training.
Mtshali is survived by his wife Gcinile and daughter Lindiwe, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.