YCL prepared for SACP 13th National Congress

"Advance and deepen working class power in all sites of struggle"

1. The Young Communist League held a Special National Working Committee meeting yesterday to finalise preparations for its contribution into the SACP 13TH National Congress to take place from the 11-15 July 2012.

2. The YCLSA will be represented at this National Congress by 60 delegates, and hundreds of other young people who see the SACP as their home now and in the future. The sitting of this Congress therefore is important for us as young communists both active within the YCLSA and as leaders of the SACP in our different structures.

3. The YCLSA believes that this Congress is significant in strengthening an independent, vibrant, active Communist Party that has influence both domestically and internationally on the struggles of the working class for socialism. Over the years, the growth of the SACP in quantitative and qualitative terms had a significant impact on our country`s political impact, and the YCLSA has played no small role in this regard.

4. The Special NWC commended the fact that since the last Congress, there are more members of the SACP serving in various legislative and government structures within the context of a reconfigured alliance. Although our detractors and some within our ranks want the Party to be embarrassed by this, we see it as an important development in strengthening a reconfigured alliance. We will be pushing for a special resolution to condemn those within the alliance who undermined the independence of the Party and the authority of its members by questioning the resolution of deploying SACP cadres in legislative and government structures.

5. The resolution of the last SACP Congress was that the SACP should contest elections within the context of a reconfigured alliance. Whilst we agree that this is significant as an immediate intervention of advancing and deepening the NDR, we believe that this Congress is important in answering critical questions about the struggle for and attainment of socialism in South Africa. The YCL believes that the SACP is and will remain the chief proponent of socialism and communism.

6. The building of active working class structures led by the SACP should be a primary goal for the next 10 years, coupled with intensified political education, public campaigns, mass ideological work and anti-capitalist programme. Just as was the case in the past, we cannot allow comfort with the idea that socialism can be attained through this or that other multi-class political formation or trade-union. The burdern for socialism lies in the shoulders of the working class and the SACP as its vanguard.

7. The Special NWC dismissed the concept of a "Second Transition" as ideologically wrong and inconsistent with our historical conceptualisation of the phases of the South African revolution. The National Executive Committee seemed to be responding to yet another wrong, ideologically incoherent and populist call for economic freedom in our lifetime. The NWC believes that we must assert the basis of our struggle as that of attaining "absolute freedom" in social, economic and political terms. Our struggle must be to liberate blacks and Africans from economic and political bondage through the building of a non-racist, non sexist and democratic society. The basis of this society lies in dealing with unemployment, poverty and inequalities. A lot more needs to be done in this regard in order to attain national cohesion and national reconciliation. We agree with the ANC that there is a need for accelerated, urgent and radical change within the context of

8. The YCLSA will be pushing for urgent changes in the areas of education, health, employment creation, the land question, private property and the distinction between the SACP, the alliance and government.

9. We believe that the shortage of medicine, textbooks, education and health infrastructure and many other state shortfalls in the state are a result of the tender system. We will be pursuing a special resolution for the complete banning of tenders in all areas that government has prioritised of delivery in this and the coming term. We believe that the state should create a public works capacity to build and maintain classrooms, houses and clinics; the state should produce its own textbooks or directly procure from publishers; the state should empower community based women co-operatives for school feeding schemes; the process of a state bank should be accelerated to provide for commercial banks services (including the payment of social grants) and many other services that will create massive and sustainable employment and ensure that the state saves needed resources. Tenderpreneurs, whatever their colour, have corrupted our public service and our politics to the detriment of our society and the confidence it has in our government.

10. The YCLSA will be pursuing a special resolution on the moratorium on sale of public land and an urgent land audit. We believe that the land question, more than any other issue, is more central to our own liberation. Without land there can be no food security, no security of tenure, no recreational facility and many other rights that are denied to the majority of our people because of land hunger. The plan to blame government as the sole party responsible for the slow pace of land redistribution must no longer be tolerated. It is the owners of land, in collusion with the courts who have fixed land prices and they must be exposed.

11. More importantly, the constitution provides for expropriation with equitable and fair compensation of land in the national interest. Food security, inequality in terms of land ownership, lack of space for housing and recreational facilities and many other youth demands are national interests and therefore, government must move with speed to expropriate land with fair and equitable compensation and redistribute this land. We will be submitting composite resolutions on land and agrarian reform to this effect.

Issued by YCLSA HQ

Mangaliso Stalin Khonza
YCLSA National Spokesperson
083 617 5546
khonzam@gmail.com