Opinion / Columnist
Zimbabwe Communist Party solidarity speech to ARTUZ conference
08 Dec 2018 at 07:24hrs | Views
Long live the spirit of Joshua Nkomo!
Long live the spirit of Josiah Tongogara!
Long live the spirit of Lookout Masuku!
Long live the spirit of Benjamin Burombo!
Comrades,l bring revolutionary greetings from the Zimbabwe Communist Party to all the workers of Zimbabwe and in particular to the militant teachers of ARTUZ who have shown the rest of Zimbabwe how a truly class- oriented trade union should operate and how it should link to other working-class and anti-imperialist struggles in Zimbabwe and the world as a whole; we salute ARTUZ for its work in supporting those evicted at Arcturus Mine, for giving solidarity to teachers in Swaziland who are under the Mswati dictatorship, a country where government oppression is even worse than in Zimbabwe and for joining in the solidarity demonstration held in Harare on behalf of the suffering people of Palestine
A lutta continua!!
Comrades! In 1957, workers in Bulawayo led by Joseph Msika and J.Z. Moyo joined with workers in Salisbury led by James Chikerema and George Nyandoro to take over the nearly defunct Southern Rhodesian African National Congress and turn it into a militant, fighting, nationalist organisation. They called the General Secretary of the biggest trade union, the Railway African Workers Union which united workers across the whole of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland to be their President. That man was Joshua Nkomo.
Comrades the national liberation movement was started by the working-class through the trade unions.
But what happened?
ZANU(PF) declared Marxism-Leninism to be its ideology but as soon as the government adopted the destructive ESAP programme in 1991, they dropped it, preferring to advance the neo liberal agenda.
By the way, the main architect of ESAP in Zimbabwe, was Bernard Chidzero, a highly qualified specialist trained in western style bourgeois economics. Is Mthuli Ncube not a re-incarnation of Bernard Chidzero?
By 1995, ESAP had led to a serious decline in real wages and the workers, led by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) started discussing the formation of a Workers' Party to oppose this neo-liberal programme adopted by ZANU(PF).
When the MDC was formed in 1999, although its main support came from the working-class, it lumped together ALL opposition forces including not only the trade unionists but also white farmers and the former Rhodesian Front. It was hi-jacked by other class forces (notably white farmers) with their own class interests. It was financed by funds coming from Britain and the USA.Early on in its existence Eddie Cross became the economic adviser to the MDC pushing an even more rigorous neo-liberal programme than that being pursued by the ZANU(PF) government. Eddie Cross is now an adviser to Mthuli Ncube!
You see Comrades, the lack of a Leninist vanguard party schooled in Marxist scientific analysis has meant that the politics of Zimbabwe have gone astray not only through capitalist greed but also because of the lack of understanding and direction of the organised working-class.
Here I would like to quote from the Manifesto of the Communist Party written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1848:
"The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only:
"1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front then common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.
"2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
"The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement."
Now we are faced with two major parties competing for the same space as the agents of neo-colonialism and neo-liberalism. Both want Zimbabwe to rejoin the British Commonwealth, a badge of subservience, and together with the French Community, a barrier to the development of a united and prosperous Africa. Comrades will know that, former French colonies are still paying colonial tax France.
As Communists we are calling for a conference of working-class organisations in April 2019 to define an agenda for the working-class in Zimbabwe.
As we build a new labour movement, and that process is already in motion in Zimbabwe, let us not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Comrades, we are happy, more than happy about the development of militant, class-oriented trade unions in Zimbabwe. But revolutionary change cannot come through even the best trade unions, for, as Comrade Lenin said:
"…the role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory."
Unlike a Communist Party, a trade union has to be open to all workers.
As Communists, we support your long march from Mutare to Harare for better wages which starts tomorrow. We stand in solidarity with you as we all call for the withdrawal of the Bond notes.
Let me conclude with the words of Comrade Lenin written in his major work What is to be Done? in 1902.
Long live the spirit of Josiah Tongogara!
Long live the spirit of Lookout Masuku!
Long live the spirit of Benjamin Burombo!
Comrades,l bring revolutionary greetings from the Zimbabwe Communist Party to all the workers of Zimbabwe and in particular to the militant teachers of ARTUZ who have shown the rest of Zimbabwe how a truly class- oriented trade union should operate and how it should link to other working-class and anti-imperialist struggles in Zimbabwe and the world as a whole; we salute ARTUZ for its work in supporting those evicted at Arcturus Mine, for giving solidarity to teachers in Swaziland who are under the Mswati dictatorship, a country where government oppression is even worse than in Zimbabwe and for joining in the solidarity demonstration held in Harare on behalf of the suffering people of Palestine
A lutta continua!!
Comrades! In 1957, workers in Bulawayo led by Joseph Msika and J.Z. Moyo joined with workers in Salisbury led by James Chikerema and George Nyandoro to take over the nearly defunct Southern Rhodesian African National Congress and turn it into a militant, fighting, nationalist organisation. They called the General Secretary of the biggest trade union, the Railway African Workers Union which united workers across the whole of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland to be their President. That man was Joshua Nkomo.
Comrades the national liberation movement was started by the working-class through the trade unions.
But what happened?
ZANU(PF) declared Marxism-Leninism to be its ideology but as soon as the government adopted the destructive ESAP programme in 1991, they dropped it, preferring to advance the neo liberal agenda.
By the way, the main architect of ESAP in Zimbabwe, was Bernard Chidzero, a highly qualified specialist trained in western style bourgeois economics. Is Mthuli Ncube not a re-incarnation of Bernard Chidzero?
By 1995, ESAP had led to a serious decline in real wages and the workers, led by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) started discussing the formation of a Workers' Party to oppose this neo-liberal programme adopted by ZANU(PF).
When the MDC was formed in 1999, although its main support came from the working-class, it lumped together ALL opposition forces including not only the trade unionists but also white farmers and the former Rhodesian Front. It was hi-jacked by other class forces (notably white farmers) with their own class interests. It was financed by funds coming from Britain and the USA.Early on in its existence Eddie Cross became the economic adviser to the MDC pushing an even more rigorous neo-liberal programme than that being pursued by the ZANU(PF) government. Eddie Cross is now an adviser to Mthuli Ncube!
You see Comrades, the lack of a Leninist vanguard party schooled in Marxist scientific analysis has meant that the politics of Zimbabwe have gone astray not only through capitalist greed but also because of the lack of understanding and direction of the organised working-class.
Here I would like to quote from the Manifesto of the Communist Party written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1848:
"The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only:
"1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front then common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.
"2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
"The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement."
Now we are faced with two major parties competing for the same space as the agents of neo-colonialism and neo-liberalism. Both want Zimbabwe to rejoin the British Commonwealth, a badge of subservience, and together with the French Community, a barrier to the development of a united and prosperous Africa. Comrades will know that, former French colonies are still paying colonial tax France.
As Communists we are calling for a conference of working-class organisations in April 2019 to define an agenda for the working-class in Zimbabwe.
As we build a new labour movement, and that process is already in motion in Zimbabwe, let us not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Comrades, we are happy, more than happy about the development of militant, class-oriented trade unions in Zimbabwe. But revolutionary change cannot come through even the best trade unions, for, as Comrade Lenin said:
"…the role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory."
Unlike a Communist Party, a trade union has to be open to all workers.
As Communists, we support your long march from Mutare to Harare for better wages which starts tomorrow. We stand in solidarity with you as we all call for the withdrawal of the Bond notes.
Let me conclude with the words of Comrade Lenin written in his major work What is to be Done? in 1902.
Source - Zimbabwe Communist Party
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