Top Six snub SACP’s Slovo event
Tensions continue unabated
IT REMAINS to be seen if leaders of the SACP and those of the ANC will in future quell the visible tensions among the two organisations despite repeated attempts for unity between the alliance partners.
This comes after none of Top Six ANC leaders attended the annual Joe Slovo commemoration held in Soweto yesterday, due to preparations for the January 8 statement celebrations in Kimberley.
Addressing those who had attended the anniversary marking Slovo’s death, SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said his organisation had to play a role in returning the movement to its former glory.
“Yes, rebuilding our movement means paying particular attention to the ANC, but most importantly to our revolutionary movement as a whole, not least attaching great importance to the working class – the main motive force of the national democratic revolution.
“That is the vanguard role of the SACP, that of pointing the way forward, rather than being the chief mourner and lamenter about the problems facing the movement.
“That is what Joe Slovo stood for!” Nzimande said.
Speaking of Slovo, Nzimande hailed the late leader as a man of practical action, saying his development of theory, strategy and tactics was anchored in practice.
However, some SACP leaders took a swipe the ANC’s failure to pitch up, despite it having promised in the past that it would not miss any event.
Slovo was the founding commander of the liberation army Umkhonto we Sizwe, along with Nelson Mandela. His last responsibility in MK was as chief of staff. He was succeeded by Chris Hani in both this position and that of the general secretary of the SACP.
Slovo, who was married to journalist and anti-apartheid activist Ruth First, was also involved in the drafting of all major documents that defined the SACP’s vision, theory and practice of the Struggle against apartheid, beginning with the Freedom Charter, adopted by the Congress of the People in 1955.
Nzimande said Slovo’s major works had become influential.
“The significance of Slovo’s intervention in 1988 remains as relevant as ever, more so in this period where, as the SACP, we are pursuing a programme to build a popular Left and the widest possible patriotic fronts and to work together with our allies to deepen the strategic relevance of the ANC-headed alliance,” he said.
Nzimande also used the platform to lambaste what he termed as “imperialist US aggression and attacks in the Middle East”.
He maintained that it was a well-documented fact that the US’s involvement in the Middle East had nothing to do with peace for the people in that region, or anything to do with the promotion of international peace and security.