New Leaders, New Collectives here ♦ Covid Pandemic: Capitalists Attack Workers here ♦ Fight Gang Violence with Communist Class Consciousness here ♦
ICWP in South Africa: Advancing Under Attack
South Africa 2014—ICWP Comrades Explaining Communism to Students
New Communist Leaders, New Communist Collectives in South Africa
January 3—The year 2020 was challenging for any collective of ICWP in every part of the world. The articles on this page about gang violence and the pandemic reflect that. But the comrades have risen to the challenge here. More comrades, especially women, have shown more leadership.
We have been discussing and building party networks. For example, C lives in a town close by. She has built a collective of high-school students and is teaching them about communism. She is not only an active member but a leader. We need to develop more female comrades to give leadership. We do have some challenges, but C’s work was a highlight of 2020.
Other comrades, including V, are actively struggling with their co-workers to recruit them. In another neighbourhood, comrades R and Y have distributed Red Flag in a factory three times. They made a few contacts. When the factories open in mid-January, they will continue to try to recruit these workers to establish a party cell inside that factory.
Advancing Under Attack
Comrade’s Zipho’s death has left a void in the organization as a whole, as well as in the collective. But it has also created opportunities for other comrades to rise up. He was not simply a member of the organization. He was a leader of the party here. That really destabilized our collective.
More comrades are starting to give more leadership. We have engaged mostly the youth who knew that he was not only a good guy, but a communist. We have recruited some few young people to join our collective in his name. For example, comrade P is giving leadership to the party and struggling to create another collective.
We will come up with concrete plans to bring different people to the party this year. They can become active members. We have to struggle with our contacts here even though we cannot see them physically. We will keep contact with them by calling and sending text messages.
Communist relations are the lifeblood of communism. We need to build personal relationships to build trust among us.
Comrades are taking some steps with encouraging results. K, another new comrade, has established a new collective in her community.
Also, comrades F and S have recruited more people in an established area. One of our leaders has moved away from there, but these comrades have stepped up. Sometimes comrades rely too much on one person. Now they have understood the value of doing things more collectively. This is the message we have been trying to hammer home to every member
When we do things collectively, we are more likely to succeed. Two heads are better than one. Three heads are better than two. Comrades are seeing more and more of the value of doing things collectively.
COVID Pandemic: Capitalists Attack the Working Class
SOUTH AFRICA, December 28—This pandemic has exposed for everyone to see the division between the working class and the middle class—people who cannot afford private health insurance and people who can. Public hospitals have become a slaughterhouse for the working class. They are supposed to prevent the spread of the virus, yet they are one of the spreaders. If you go into a hospital you are unlikely to come back.
It’s better to die at your house than to actually go to a hospital. That’s how our class brothers and sisters feel about the state of hospitals here in South Africa. It is a comment on the state of our hospitals.
Not only that. The pandemic has also exposed the cruelty of the government and of the system. South Africa has reached a million cases. Thirty thousand have died in the last two months. And yet the government is considering another full lockdown, which is really a direct assault on the working class.
They expect people who live in houses that are no larger than match boxes to actually quarantine, expect extended families to stay inside. There’s no plan. What will they eat while they are locking themselves up for a month or so? This is not the failure of individuals.
This is the general failure of the capitalist system because it prioritizes the bosses and neglects the majority, the working class, those suffering on the ground.
Townships are a hotbed for the virus because of the way people are living. They are thrown together, in many cases with no proper sanitation, no running water, in other cases, with no electricity. To expect people to lock themselves up: how are they going to survive, to eat?
It is important for us to highlight this problem but at the same time to come up with solutions. The only thing that will make this better, that will end our suffering, is the complete eradication of capitalism.
And for that we need the International Communist Workers’ Party to lead this revolution against this murderous system. We need our class brothers and sisters. We need to be able to reach out to them, to recruit them, to spread our literature so that they can stand with us and fight against capitalism.
Fight Gang Violence with Communist Class Consciousness
While the African National Congress and the South African government are still in paralysis because of their internal divisions, the workers are left to fend for themselves in the face of gang violence. Without unity within the working class, we will continue to suffer. ICWP exists so that we can try to heal this division and bring these different racial groups under our organization, which is multi-racial even from its founding.
Workers are facing a brutal assault from the gangs. We have lost two comrades in the Party due to this gang violence.
The most important message that we need to drive through to workers is that we are more similar than we are different. Of course, the bosses will emphasize our differences which is only colour. But if we look at things based on class consciousness; we will be able to see beyond these trivial things like race.
One critical aspect that goes largely ignored is the role of police in perpetuating the violence against the masses by the gangs. Corrupt policemen sell gangs the guns and ammunition and look the other way when these gangs are selling their drugs. Even when there are raids, some gangs get tip-offs from the very same police. We can’t rely on the police to protect us. We need to take matters into our own hands, to unite against these attacks and completely wipe capitalism from the face of the earth.
The most important thing is for us to fight the disease, which is the capitalist system. The gangs themselves are the first line of defence for the bosses. The second line of defence is the police.
The government has been negotiating with some of the gangs, therefore giving them legitimacy. Now they feel that they are kings in some of the neighbourhoods that have been carved out. The police know they cannot go into certain neighbourhoods. Services like ambulances cannot go in if someone is sick. They have to rent a car to take them to hospital. Some people who need emergency assistance die on the road. Some of them die in the hospital because of the poor state they are in. Unless we eradicate the system, the workers will continue to suffer.
—Comrade in South Africa