104 years in the struggle for socialism: SACP

The South African Communist Party on its 104th anniversary, Trump's imperialist bullying and the international situation including in Gaza, Cuba, Swaziland, Western Sahara, Sudan, Venezuela and elsewhere.

The South African Communist Party (SACP) has released a statement looking at its 104th anniversary, pressing domestic issues and the international situation. We have posted lengthy excerpts focusing on the anniversary and international issues.

For the full statement see: Solidnet | South African CP, Statement on the 104th anniversary of the Party, Sunday, 3 August 2025

Statement on the 104th anniversary of the Party, Sunday, 3 August 2025

104 years of consistent struggle for socialism: Intensifying the class battle for meaningful working-class representation and for ending poverty

The Communist Party has stood firm for more than a century, carrying forward the banner of the working class and the poor. The lesson of our 104 years is clear. Political freedom without economic emancipation is incomplete. Democracy without working-class power remains hollow.

Unemployment, poverty and inequality continue to define the lives of millions in our country today. Private monopoly capital continues to loot our resources, exploit labour and sabotage development. Neo-liberal austerity and monetary policy suffocate our economy while corruption and lawlessness undermine the gains we won through decades of sacrifice. This cannot continue.

We call on the working class as a whole, employed and unemployed workers, the poor in general, women and men united, the youth, progressive intellectuals and sections of the middle class, and peasants, to intensify the class struggle. Let us unite in defence of our hard-won democratic breakthrough and for the advance to socialism.

Our hard-won democratic dispensation, a key milestone in our revolution, is not and must never be treated as an end in itself. It must serve as a means to obliterate the legacy of colonialism and apartheid to build a better life for all, especially the majority, being the working class and poor, and to establish shared prosperity on a non-racial and non-sexist basis.

In the same way, the National Democratic Revolution is not and must never be reduced to an end in itself. It is a direct route to socialism, rooted in our country’s historical realities, to achieve freedom from capitalist-class domination and exploitation of the working class and control of the state and society at large.

The National Democratic Revolution is a strategy of struggle, transformation and development. It was first conceptualised by the Communist Party as a world movement and here at home in the course of the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggle for liberation and social emancipation. But even then, the Communist Party advanced this strategic perspective not for its own sake but in the interests of the working class, the peasants and, ultimately, society as a whole.

The National Democratic Revolution is therefore not the private property of any single organisation inside or outside our movement, nor does any such organisation have an exclusive leadership or other role in it. The revolution is for the people. Everything within it must be about serving the people, and nothing within it must be against the people.

In class terms, the working class, as the majority class and primary but not the sole motive force, must rise to the occasion and establish its leadership of the National Democratic Revolution by democratic means. This must help overcome the crisis of working-class representation that has emerged under the elite pacts that characterise our national political scenario.

To the working class, both employed and unemployed, in urban and rural areas, in the squatter camps, in the labour movement and beyond, young and old, let us build a powerful, socialist movement, and a popular Left front.

Let us intensify the struggle against privatisation in all its forms, including the auctioning off of state assets and the outsourcing of state functions, as well as the replacement of state participation in sectors such as electricity, rail, ports and water infrastructure with profit-driven private interests, including the water tankers associated with the deliberate destruction of or sabotage in the public water provision infrastructure.

Let us intensify the struggle against the conversion of permanent work into insecure and temporary employment, the struggle against labour brokering and the overall struggle against neo-liberalism in all its framing and agendas, including austerity.

Let us tackle the crisis of working-class representation

We must rise with the strength of 104 years of consistent struggle for liberation, democracy and socialism.

The struggle for meaningful working-class representation is not for tomorrow – it is for today. It is a struggle that demands organisation in our workplaces and institutions of learning, mobilisation in our communities and unity in action across our country. This struggle requires us to set the national transformation and development agenda in pursuit of the goals of the Freedom Charter, which remains the basic programme of the National Democratic Revolution.

In that order, we must hold the government and other organs of the state accountable and reclaim our economy for the benefit of the people. To this end, let us strengthen and deploy our collective capacity to provide leadership in the forthcoming National Dialogue process, to secure outcomes that advance the eradication of poverty, achieve large-scale employment creation to end the unemployment crisis and realise, in practice, the right of all to work.

The National Dialogue process must contribute to the radical reduction of inequality and its ultimate elimination. Without advancing these objectives, including resolving the unresolved land question, the National Dialogue will become nothing more than another talk show and a waste of national resources.

Advancing the immediate struggle to confront the crisis of working-class representation requires strategic consistency, with vanguard implementation of our National Congress and Special National Congress resolutions to contest elections directly and more effectively. This is no longer a question of if or when. It is now a question of strengthening our preparations at every Central Committee, Political Bureau and sub-national level of leadership organs to contest the forthcoming local government elections in 2026 on a wall-to-wall basis, as resolved in clear terms by our Fifth Special National Congress in December 2024.

Engagements with our allies on the reconfiguration of the Alliance and on better ways of relating and strengthening our relationship are not a substitute for our National Congress and Special National Congress resolutions but must be pursued, as we are doing, in line with those resolutions. It is a fact that every ally within our Alliance upholds the resolutions of its highest decision-making body, whether a National Congress or a National Conference. It was with a clear appreciation of the situation that the last bilateral meeting between the ANC and the SACP agreed to establish a joint task team on these issues.

International solidarity

We stand with the people of Swaziland in their struggle for democracy and call for an end to the war in Sudan.

The SACP stands firmly with the people of Western Sahara in their struggle for national self-determination, democratic sovereignty and an end to the occupation of their land by Morocco, which is backed primarily by imperialist powers as well as sellouts who have turned against the Sahrawi people after years of pretending to support their struggle.

The SACP expresses its unwavering solidarity with the heroic people of Palestine in their just struggle against genocide, land dispossession, colonial occupation and apartheid. In just 24 hours, between 28 and 29 July 2025, the apartheid Israeli settler regime massacred 113 Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and injured 637 others. This atrocity is part of the continuing genocide that has already claimed the lives of 60,034 martyrs since 7 October 2023, with a conservative estimate of 145,870 others injured. Among those murdered are patients killed in or while seeking care in hospitals and other healthcare centres, as well as children, the elderly and women.

The cruelty of the apartheid Israeli regime is further shown in its deliberate targeting of civilians seeking food and humanitarian aid. By 29 July 2025, 1,179 civilians had been killed while trying to access aid, with another 7,957 wounded in these criminal attacks. These acts are not only war crimes, but they are also crimes against humanity. They expose the true nature of the apartheid Israeli settler regime, which continues its genocidal project with impunity, backed and armed by imperialist powers such as the United States, who are complicit in this ongoing slaughter.

Instead of addressing the genocide against Palestinians by the apartheid Israeli settler regime – which has also destroyed Palestinian social and economic infrastructure, including hospitals, healthcare centres, schools, learning institutions and places of worship – Donald Trump, the President of the United States imperialist regime has chosen to fabricate a false claim of white genocide in South Africa.

Not only did Trump and his administration seek to divert attention from the real genocide against the Palestinian people by the apartheid Israeli settler regime, but he also arrogantly displayed his racist attitude by turning a blind eye to the plight of the landless black majority in South Africa, who were dispossessed under colonisation and apartheid, while falsely elevating claims of land confiscation from white people.

The SACP calls for worldwide unity of the working class and all progressive forces against the United States-led imperialist war-mongering offensives, including direct military and trade wars. The SACP reiterates its support for the BRICS Plus partnership, which must become a vehicle to build a just and better world and systematically end uneven global development and the exploitation of one country’s resources and people by another.

The SACP expresses its solidarity with the peoples of Iran, Lebanon, Syria and others resisting the attacks of the United States-backed apartheid Israeli settler regime.

We express our solidarity with the people and government of Cuba in their struggle against the United States’ illegal sanctions and criminal economic, financial, trade and investment blockade. We call on the United States to end these sanctions and the occupation of Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay. Similarly, we stand in solidarity with the people of Venezuela against United States-led imperialist suppression and illegal sanctions.