On International Matters: SACP

The South African Communist Party looks at Victory Day, Cuba and the Cuban Revolution, the Trump false refugee fiasco, threats to sovereignty in Africa and US imperialist aggression.

The Politburo of the South African Communist Party held a meeting on Friday, May 16 in Johannesburg. The meeting advanced the work mandated by the 5th Special National Congress and reaffirmed by the Central Committee at its Plenary on April 6, 2025.

The General Secretary delivered a political overview outlining the principal tasks before the Party and the working-class programme. The Politburo also received a series of reports and presentations. These formed the basis for focused discussion on the political moment and organisational imperatives.

A statement was released part of which looked at the international situation. We have published that part below. For the full statement see: http://solidnet.org/article/South-African-CP-Post-Political-Bureau-statement/

International Matters

Victory Day

May is a significant month in the history of the world and of humanity. The 9th of May is observed as Victory Day, a day marking the triumph of humanity over Nazism and fascism in the Second World War. In 2025, Victory Day marks the 80th anniversary of this historic victory, which the Soviet Union played a great role. It was the courage, discipline and revolutionary determination of the Soviet Red Army that broke the back of Nazi barbarism and secured peace for the peoples of the world. The SACP expresses deep concern over the continued distortion and erasure of this decisive history.

There are deliberate efforts to diminish the leading role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Nazism and fascism. These falsifications serve a reactionary purpose. They aim to rewrite history in the interests of imperialist powers and to deny future generations the truth about the class character of fascism and the force that defeated it. The Soviet Union lost over 27 million lives in the war. This was the most profound act of internationalist sacrifice in defence of human progress. The historical truth must be defended without compromise. To undermine it is to align with the very forces that seek to rehabilitate fascism under new guises, including the Ukrainian neo-fascists and Neo-Nazi’s.

Cuba and the Cuban Revolution

The Politburo strongly condemned both the criminal blockade, including illegal sanctions, imposed on Cuba by the imperialist regime of the United States. One of the important ways of realising concrete work with Cuba is the building and extension of bilateral economic and state-to-state co-operation in different areas where Cuban and South African knowledge, trade, industry and investment can be leveraged for the mutual benefit of the peoples of Cuba. Cuba played such a crucial role in the independence of our country and other countries in the South.

The education sector and the scientific, research and medical fields are three of the areas where some of this co-operation already exists. In intensifying its solidarity with Cuba, the SACP will strengthen its campaign to deepen the co-operation and expand it. We call on all progressive and revolutionary working-class forces and allies across the world to intensify solidarity with the Cuban government and people.

American false refugee fiasco

The Politburo looked at the racist United States’ refugee programme in South Africa, initiated and negotiated by South African right-wing sects with the intention of pressuring the South African government against transformation and redress. On the part of the United States, the so-called refugee programme is part of its wider reaction against South Africa’s decision to refer the apartheid Israeli settler regime to the International Court of Justice, for the apartheid Israeli regime to be held accountable for the genocide it has been committing and continue committing against the Palestinian people.

In South Africa, the actions of the South African right-wing organisations are not a reflection of the real conditions in South Africa, nor do they represent any legitimate grievance on any matter of importance. The refugee programme of the US government is based on a fallacy concocted by anti-transformation forces in South Africa, intended ultimately to construct a racialised international solidarity for their benefit, underpinned by white nationalism and white supremacy and rejection of democracy.

The South African delegation to Washington must emphasise the fundamental right to self-determination and democratic sovereignty. At the same time, South Africa must strengthen the development of the Global South's economic and political relations as a shared objective among the people in this region of the world. The South African government, therefore, must not be found acting to promote the interests of forces whose aims are detrimental to the development and transformation of our country. Any and all engagements with the United States should foreground these principles.

While we recognise the vast factual distortions and the economic and political opportunism embedded in this action, which we repudiate in the strongest terms, we have an even greater concern related to the improper use of the term “genocide” to justify the false claim of so-called widespread murder and so-called abuse of the so-called farmers. This false narrative threatens the country and its people in a very profound way.

The terminology of “genocide” used falsely has profound diplomatic and political implications for a country like South Africa, and its effects can be detrimental to our national security and national sovereignty. The false accusation of genocide, as opposed to the real genocide committed by the apartheid Israeli settler regime against the Palestinian people, has been used by imperialist countries as a pretext to justify military or other interventions and interference for their own benefit. There exist many examples in the recent past where blatant falsehoods have been used to justify military or other interventions or interference which have ultimately been proven to be false. This must not be the fate of South Africa.

Threats to sovereignty in Africa

The possible threat to the national sovereignty of South Africa is not an isolated case. It is part of the risk faced by many countries in the SADC region. The natural resources available in the SADC region and other regions in Africa expose our continent to the danger of foreign imperialist interference from various directions. The rare earth natural resources essential to the production of modern technological inventions have increased in demand, thus creating a desperate and frantic search by international monopoly capital for resources such as these as raw materials. These natural resources are also found in the Sahel region. A great portion of the imperialist political manoeuvres in the present period must be understood in the context of these interests. This is, of course, the contemporary manifestation of the historic exploitation of Africa for raw mineral resources by former colonial powers and present day imperialist states.

The response, in the form of the contemporary political dynamics that are taking shape in the Sahel region of Africa manifest a revolutionary moment in the development of African politics. The actions by the Senegalese, Burkinabé, Niger and Malian states and governments are decisively transformational, not only in the relationship of these countries with France but in the broader relationship between Africa and the erstwhile colonising powers in Europe.

The developments in the Sahel region are emblematic of a revolutionary sentiment present across the African continent. Part of the SACP’s programme, adopted by the Politburo, is to visit and engage the people and leaders of the region with the intention of building solidarity and co-operative relations with these important revolutionary forces. It is evident that it is in the interests of revolutionaries in Africa and everywhere else that the developments in the Sahel be supported and protected from external interference.

This is because the region now represents effectively an anti-imperialist resistance frontline action coupled with the real exercise of state power for the advancement of the people.

United States imperialist aggression

Imperialism, as we know it, continues to seek new frontiers for growth, expansion and influence while managing an internal crisis manifesting at its most significant centre, the United States of America. The United States’ economy has struggled for some time with a crisis, among others manifesting in a remarkable increase in income inequality, rising poverty levels, the decimation of the industrial working class as well as the managerial middle class, the proliferation of ultra-wealthy sections of capital rooted in extreme financialisation, the obliteration of the social wage, and accompanying policy and political changes. These have ultimately led to the rise of right-wing political sects as an objective reaction to the economic crisis.

The Trump administration’s response to the crisis has included the promulgation of extreme executive orders purportedly aimed at addressing the collapse of industrial capacity in the United States. Some of these executive orders created a network of tariffs designed to engineer a reorganisation of market forces to America’s advantage. The effects of this tariff regime have included the systematic disruption of the World Trade Organisation system and its norms, disruption of internal trade and rule of law, thereby calling into question, in the short term, the applicability and enforceability of trade rules. The tariffs serve as instruments for transactional negotiations by the American government. However, this manoeuvre has limited potential to restore a competitive industrial capacity in the United States, for a variety of structural reasons, not least of which is the country’s own neoliberal policy framework.

The fate of AGOA and other trade agreements to which smaller economies have had access lies within this overarching framework of tariffs, which have now been weaponised and deployed as tools of transactional bargaining in line with the economic ambitions of the United States in the trade war it has started. As things stand, these tariffs have the immediate potential to override AGOA and render its intended economic benefits meaningless.

In the face of continued financialisation of the United States’ economy, the Trump proposition of a decisive revitalisation of industrial manufacturing becomes impractical, especially against the background of an inadequate industrial infrastructure, the productive capacity of Socialist China that is leading in this sphere and the absence of coherent investment in such a direction from either the market or the state. The SACP will intensify its work in this regard.