South African Workers' Struggle Not Over Yet

Delegates at the South African Communist Party (SACP) Congress held in July 2012., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Analysis: Workers’ struggle not over yet

by Phatse Justice Piitso

Leaders should use the opportunity of the celebrations of Workers Day to unite the common struggles of our people against oppression and exploitation.

Tomorrow the world will celebrate the most magnificent day in the calendar of the history of the struggles of the working class movement. We are celebrating International Workers Day throughout the world. The world is celebrating the achievements and victories of workers against imperialism and colonialism.

International Workers Day is primarily about the common struggles of our people against imperialism and colonialism. It is about working class solidarity and internationalism. It is an important day that signifies the most revolutionary notion that the struggles of mankind throughout history is one and indivisible.

We celebrate this glorious chapter of the history of the world working class struggles 209 years after the declaration of the independence of the first slave republic in the world and the first independent nation in the Latin America and the Caribbean, the Republic of Haiti.

We celebrate the achievements and the victories of the working class struggles 134 years after the historic declaration of the first workers republic during the Paris commune. The commune was a turning point in the history of the working class struggles in the world.

We are celebrating this important day in the calendar of the history of the working class struggles 96 years after the declaration of the great October socialist revolution. We celebrate this day 23 years after the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Block and the communist states in eastern Europe.

We celebrate this historic day 101 years after the formation of the oldest liberation movement on the African continent and probably the whole world, the African National Congress. We celebrate this important day 92 years after the birth of the South African Communist party. We celebrate Workers Day 28 years after the formation of the Congress of the South African Trade Unions.

We celebrate epic years of worldwide selfless struggles led by our people against the vestiges of imperialism and colonialism.

We join the revolutionary slogan of the world working class movement as we say: “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.”

The triumph and the victories of the struggles of our people is the victory of our national democratic revolution and our struggles to construct a new world social order.

However we are celebrating this glorious page of our history book during the most difficult period in the history of the struggles of the working class movement.

The international balance of forces has tilted dramatically against the progressive movement of the people of the world. The collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent communist states in eastern Europe has mounted a severe setback to the struggles of the working class across the globe.

The working class movement finds itself having to propel the struggle for emancipation under the most hostile and complex material circumstances dominated by the aggressive unipolar world.

The dominant capitalist mode of production is deeply redefining the economic and social relations of the world. Capitalism has reached its highest stage of development.

The dominant world of capitalism is unable to salvage itself from its own contradictions. The world capitalist powers have failed dismally to resolve the perpetual socio-economic crisis imposed on the shoulders of the working class. The challenges of the capitalistic world economy has become the defining feature of the deepening struggles waged by the working class.

The world and its people are confronted by an unprecedented proportions of an economic crisis ever in the history of capitalism. The massive scales of poverty, disease and under-development have become the principal characteristic defining the vast majority of the people of the world.

This has as a result sharpened the worldwide struggle to resolve the national, class and gender contradictions in our society.

Marxist Leninist theory teaches us that the foundations of the success of any revolution lies in the bedrock of the unity of its own people. Unity and cohesion is our foremost principal task to ensure the success of the struggles of our people.

It is therefore important that we use this day to foster and consolidate the unity of the struggles of the people of the world and our national democratic revolution.

The fundamental principle of unity and cohesion is the highest expression and irreplaceable instrument to advance and deepen the struggles of the working class across the world. The unity of our national democratic revolution is the unity of the struggles of the people of the world against imperialism and colonialism.

Our main task is to use the occasion of the celebration of Workers Day to educate our people that unity and cohesion of our revolutionary alliance led by the ANC is the necessary condition for the success of our national democratic revolution.

That unity of the South African working class movement is the unity of the working class solidarity and internationalism.

The South African working class is traversing this difficult period of our struggles under much improved political conditions led by our national liberation movement, the ANC. Our national liberation movement is still consistent with the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial traditions of the international working class movement.

In other words the struggles for the liberation of our people led by the ANC is still consistent with the traditions and principles of the struggles of the international working class to confront the domination of imperialism and colonialism.

Our national liberation movement is still committed to improving the living conditions of the people of our country and the world.

The world economic crisis has a devastating consequence to the struggles of the people of our country. But at the same time we have to educate our people that some of the socio-economic contradictions we face are the inevitable outcomes of our struggles.

We need an extraordinary effort by our people to resolve the pandemic centuries-old contradictions imposed by imperialism and colonialism on our people.

Imperialism and colonialism have caused more misery to all mankind in the history of the struggles of the working class. Millions of the people of the world still shed their blood today in the name of imperialism and neo-colonialism.

Revolutionaries have an immediate task to ensure that they unite the people of the world against our common enemy and therefore make the world a better place for humanity.

In our country the DA has distinguished itself to be a force of negation against the common struggles of our people to improve their socio-economic conditions.

Counter-revolution is determined to reverse the achievements and the victories of the struggles of our people. There is a concerted effort by the enemy of our revolution to use the challenges of the present world economic crisis against our democratic government led by the ANC.

We hope that the celebrations will bring much sense to imperialist powers and monopoly capital. The world and its people needs peace and tranquility.

We need peace and stability in Syria, in the Korean peninsula, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, Libya, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, DRC, Ivory Coast, Mali, Central African Republic, Sahrawi Republic, Swaziland, Cuba, Haiti, Venenzuela, Columbia, in the euro zone and many other parts of our mother earth.

Piitso is former ambassador to the Republic of Cuba and former provincial secretary of the SACP. He writes in his personal capacity