Don’t Fight For The Nationalisation of Land

Fight To End Private Property With Communist Revolution

SOUTH AFRICA, April 1—It is almost a year until the next elections and the political parties are starting to campaign for support. The only popular topic is the question of land.

More than a century ago when the European settlers, led by Jan van Riebeck, came to South Africa they implemented one of the well-known division techniques (divide and conquer). They divided the working class using the race card. They managed to divide the whites against the blacks. This later resulted in Apartheid which lasted for many years.

The whites removed blacks from their land. This was one of the things that the working class fought against during Apartheid. The year 1994 marks the beginning of the so-called freedom and the end of Apartheid. The ruling party (African National Congress, ANC) addressed the issue of land by implementing a “willing buyer, willing seller policy.” This resulted in many land owners refusing to sell their land because the price offered was below market value. This has slowed the land redistribution process.

Many political parties were formed after 1994. One of them is known as the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by Julius Malema who was the youth leader of the ruling party (ANC). It has grabbed the attention of the masses by raising the land question. It wants expropriation of the land without compensation. They say, “The land was taken through genocide. Therefore we cannot compensate criminals.”

The ruling party was against this. However, now, with their newly elected president Cyril Ramaphosa, and with the decline of support which resulted in them losing the elections in key metropolitan areas, they now say they fully support this. They want to amend the constitution in order to allow such acts. They want to nationalise the mines, banks and other strategic sectors of the economy.

What the working class must understand is that the newly elected president is funded by the western imperialists. In fact, politicians are just agents of the bosses who are only implementing what they are told. This is not a servant betraying his master. It can be seen as the west is trying to eliminate the competition because now they are the ones giving orders to the ruling party. Before the December elective conference, the ANC was leaning more towards the Russians and the Chinese.

The redistribution of land is nothing but the government monopolizing the market of these sectors. As long as the ownership is under the government, the working class will have to rent the land with the money they’ve borrowed from the bank, which will also be owned by the government.

Under communism there will be no private property. The land will be owned by the working class to produce for the needs of the collective. Private ownership of land creates massive hunger and starvation. Communism is the opposite. The collective work of the masses will not only produce food for need, but it will guarantee healthy food devoid of cancer-causing pesticides and harmful chemicals. We will produce what we need in harmony with nature, rather than destroying nature as happens under capitalism.

We are taking the message of building our party to the masses by distributing our literature and recruiting new members to help build for May Day.

Front page of this issue

Print Friendly, PDF & Email