In memory of a communist hero and combatant of the liberation movement – SACP remembers Joe Slovo

From Umsebenzi Online

In the early hours of 6 January 1995, that hero of our revolution, Cde Joe Slovo, passed away after a long battle with cancer. This year we are commemorating the 10th anniversary of that sad day. Slovo’s struggles, sacrifices and memory still lives amongst the millions of South Africans especially the workers and the poor. Slovo, alongside Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu, can truly be regarded as one of the founding fathers of our democratic South Africa. He also ranks alongside giants like Sydney Bunting, Bram Fischer and Ray Alexander, as representing the best of the contribution made by some of our white compatriots to the liberation struggle and the struggle for socialism.

In recognition of this distinguished service, the ANC, at its 1994 National Conference in Bloemfontein, awarded Cde Joe Slovo with Isithwalandwe – the highest honour bestowed for distinguished struggle and service to the national liberation struggle. At the time of his passing away, he was the National Chairperson of the SACP and a member of the National Executive Committee of the ANC. Slovo was not only a leading South African political figure, but he was respected globally within the ranks of the communist, progressive and liberation movements, for his sacrifices, writings and vision. It is important to remember this and honour this legacy of Slovo, particularly in the wake of growing imperialist arrogance and aggression. The unipolar dominance of the United States and its aggression under George W Bush, including the illegal invasion of Iraq, should impel all progressive forces worldwide to deepen working class internationalism. In honour of the internationalism of Slovo, the SACP will continue to play its part in fostering international solidarity.

In honour of Cde Slovo, the SACP has declared January 2005 'The Joe Slovo Month'. The 10th anniversary commemoration activities will include a visit to Slovo’s graveside on 6 January 2005, a Joe Slovo Memorial Seminar on 25 January, and numerous mass activities organised by our provinces.

Slovo’s life of struggle spans what can be regarded as the period of decisive shift to, and deepening of, militant mass and armed struggles in South Africa from the early 1940s through to the democratic breakthrough of 1994. Slovo came through the ranks of the Young Communist League in the early 1940’s. The 1940s was a period of resurgent mass and trade union struggles, principally led by the then Communist Party of South Africa, now the SACP. Since then Slovo was part of the major events in the unfolding of our national democratic revolution. He was part of the Defiance Campaign in the 1950s, was amongst the first to join Umkhonto WeSizwe (MK - the armed wing of the ANC), and later became one of the key negotiators for our movement in the early 1990’s.

Slovo is still fondly remembered as a commander of the Special Operations Unit of MK, which, amongst other things, attacked the headquarters of the South African Defence Force in Pretoria, and attacks on SASOL. This so incensed the apartheid regime such that it undertook what it thought was a smear campaign, by claiming that he was a KGB colonel, thus declaring him enemy number one. Slovo, who was well known also for his sense of humour, joked about this after 1990, by saying he must have been the most unsuccessful spy in the world for having been a colonel for such a long time without any promotion!

In 1994, Slovo became the first Minister of Housing in the democratic South Africa. One of the first actions he undertook in this capacity was to negotiate an agreement with South African banks to finance low-cost housing. Despite their commitments, and government creating the necessary support mechanisms for this, the banks failed dismally in this regard. It is only now, after our sustained campaign to make banks serve the people, that there is some commitment to finance low-cost housing. Over the last ten years, the SACP has earnestly taken forward this campaign, aspects of which were pioneered by Cde Slovo.

The SACP will intensify the financial sector campaign this year, partly in memory of the pioneering role that Slovo played. To this end, the Steering Committee of the SACP-led Financial Sector Campaign Coalition (FSCC) has adopted a five-pronged programme of action for 2005. The programme includes demanding access to non-banking financial services, particularly Mzansi-type products for long and short term insurance, and calling for an amnesty on credit bureaux blacklisting as part of launching the new regulations for credit bureax. In addition we shall mobilise to promote truly broad-based black economic empowerment in the financial sector and building co-operative financial institutions.

Indeed Cde JS, as he was fondly known within the ranks of the liberation movement, would have been happy with the progress we have made as a country. We are earnestly consolidating our democracy based on the constitution in which he played such a leading role in negotiating and drafting. However, he would have observed that the single biggest obstacle towards deepening our democracy and addressing the national question is capitalism.

Capitalism, as the SACP correctly points out, has signally failed our democracy, and this requires the intensification of the struggles to roll back the capitalist market in the provision of basic services and in our strategies for job creation and sustainable livelihoods. As he cogently argued, JS would have reiterated the continued relevance of socialism, as the only rational form of human society. Never has the need for an active role of the state been so glaring in contemporary South Africa than now, with the capitalist market failing dismally to address the minimum of the needs of the overwhelming majority of our people.

It is because of these realities that Slovo would have fearlessly entered the current major debates about the direction of the accumulation regime in our country, including black economic empowerment (BEE). At the time of his death, Slovo was intensely pre-occupied about the challenges and direction of a post-apartheid South Africa. At some stage he got irritated with the cover theme of our very first journal, The African Communist, after the first democratic elections, 'A luta Continua.' Not that he did not understand that even after that victory the struggle continues, but was demanding that we be more precise about the content of that struggle.

In most of his writings Cde Slovo was also pre-occupied with the relationship between the national and class struggles in our revolution. He insisted that this relationship was not a fixed one, but needed to be understood within the context of the different historical phases of our revolution. In his 1988 pamphlet on the working class and the national democratic revolution, he made some cogent observations about the black middle strata and black sections of the bourgeoisie, in a manner that is even more relevant today: 'It is obvious that the black capitalist class favours capitalism and that it will do its best to influence the post-apartheid society in this direction. It is obvious that the black middle and upper classes who take part in a broad liberation alliance will jostle for hegemony and attempt to represent their interests as the interests of all Africans. It is obvious that (like their counterparts in every part of the world) the black middle and upper strata, who find themselves on the side of the people’s struggle, are often inconsistent and vacillating. They are usually the enemy’s softest targets for achieving a reformist, rather than a revolutionary, outcome.' It is even more urgent that as we remember Slovo, we reflect on the relevance and meaning of some of these observations in the contemporary period. In fact Slovo would have encouraged all within our ranks to debate these issues, without fear or favour. It is this example of a ‘debating Slovo’ that we need to jealously guard as a condition to deepen the national democratic revolution.

We are commemorating the 10th anniversary of the passing away of Slovo, in the year we celebrate 50 years of the Freedom Charter. Slovo was a combatant for the realisation of the ideals of the Freedom Charter. He understood that the national liberation of black people through the destruction of the apartheid system and its regime was the foremost goal of our struggle. However, as a communist, he also knew that the total destruction of national oppression and its legacy can only be fully realised under a socialist dispensation.

Cde Slovo was a committed cadre of the ANC. He believed and practiced the maxim that a good communist must be in the ANC. We can honour his memory by ensuring that communists deepen their activism in the ANC, and call upon all the workers and the poor to actively participate and strengthen this leading political organ of the national democratic revolution.

Since his death, we have built an active, campaigning SACP, mobilising and in constant touch with the workers and the poor. In this we have been guided by our strategic slogan 'Socialism is the future, build it now', which we adopted at our 9th Congress, six months after his death in 1995. We have embarked on numerous campaigns, the latest being the land and agrarian reform campaign. Slovo would have been proud of this. We were also pleased that last year the University of Fort Hare decided to hold a Joe Slovo Memorial Seminar on land and agrarian transformation in honour of this hero of our people.

We also welcome the decision to honour Slovo with the renaming of the courtyard at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, after his name. On our part we shall forever treasure his memory by intensifying our work in building an independent party, building independent working class power in all spheres of power, and deepening SACP activism.