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By Fred Weston
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Wednesday, 21 May 2008 |
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The recent barbaric
events in some of the poorest townships of South Africa highlight the dramatic
situation that is developing in the country. The ANC leaders have sold out the
cause the masses struggled for so many years. Apartheid was brought down
but not the system that spawned it. There is an unfinished task to
accomplish.
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By Fred Weston
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Thursday, 24 April 2008 |
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The present impasse in Zimbabwe is a direct result of the
so-called Structural Adjustment Plans so dear to imperialism, imposed on the
Zimbabwean people in collaboration with Mugabe after he came to power. Now they
have turned against him, but he is a creature of their own making.
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By Jorge Martin
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Thursday, 03 October 2002 |
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As was to be predicted the ANC government and the employers made a combined effort to
discredit COSATU's two-day general strike on October 1 and 2. The strike has opened the
doors for an all-out attack on COSATU by the right wing of the ANC. This started with
Thabo Mbeki's statements on Friday to the effect that the "ANC is not a vehicle for
socialism" and that anyone who disagreed was welcomed to leave, and accusing COSATU
of being infiltrated by the "ultra-left". |
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By Jorge Martin
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Tuesday, 01 October 2002 |
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A massive march marked the first day of the 2-day general strike called by COSATU in South
Africa to protest against the privatisation plans of the ANC government, and against job
losses and poverty which have been aggravated by the recent increases in the prices of
staple foods. Report from Johannesburg by Jorge Martin. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Monday, 30 September 2002 |
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Phineas Malapela, member of the Executive of the Anti-Privatisation Forum and member of
the Vaal Working Class Communities Co-ordinating Committee spoke to In Defence of
Marxism before the recent October 1-2 general strike in South Africa. He
explains the devastating effects of the privatisation policies of the ANC government on
ordinary working class people in South Africa and explains how people are organising to
defend themselves. |
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By Jordi Martorell
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Saturday, 07 September 2002 |
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Hosting the World Summit for Sustainable Development was an important test for the ANC
government in South Africa. Since it came to power in 1994 the ANC government has pursued
openly pro-capitalist policies. A growing protest movement has emerged, particularly from
the poorest townships where residents are being cut off from water and electricity and
evicted because they cannot pay their bills. |
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By Jordi Martorell
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Wednesday, 28 August 2002 |
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The South African working class movement has a long tradition of singing revolutionary
songs and toy-toying as a way of expressing its ideas, anger and willingness to struggle.
The 11th Congress of the South African Communist Party (SACP), held from July 24-28 2002
in Rustenburg in the North West Province, was no exception. This time revolutionary songs
reflected very well the anger of the rank and file delegates against the policies and
leadership of the ANC which have failed in government to solve any of the problems facing
the South African workers and the poor. The only way forward is energetic organization
around a clear, genuinely socialist programme. |
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By Jordi Martorell
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Wednesday, 17 July 2002 |
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Jordi Martorell looks at the 2002 SACP pre-congress documents in the light of the
developments in South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994. The positive break with
the Stalinist two-stage theory must not mean a retreat into social-democratic ideas. The
break with Stalinism should mean a return to the genuine revolutionary ideas of Lenin, for
socialism and the overthrow of capitalism as the only way to acheive genuine liberation. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Friday, 17 May 2002 |
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Recently we received a request from an SACP activist for our comments on the exchange of
letters between an SACP leader and an ANC leader that were published in the SACP quarterly
journal, the African Communist. Quotes from Marx and Lenin were used to justify the
pro-capitalist policies of the government. Jordi Martorell sets the record straight by
explaining what Marx and Lenin really stood for. |
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By Jordi Martorell
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Wednesday, 17 April 2002 |
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Jordi Martorell reviews this new book by Patrick Bond and Masimba Manyanya. It traces the
economic history of Zimbabwe over the last 100 years but pays special attention to the
last 20 years since the coming to power of Zanu-PF. But while they make a damning
condemnation of the IMF and their policies that have wrecked the Zimbabwean economy, the
authors are proposing reformist solutions of tariff barriers and exchange controls, which
will not solve the main problem which is the over-exploitation of the workforce. There is
no way forward on a capitalist basis.
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By Jordi Martorell
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Wednesday, 10 April 2002 |
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87 people were arrested on Saturday April 6 at a protest outside the house of
Johannesburg's mayor, Amos Masondo, in South Africa. The protest was against the practices
of the privatised South African electricity company ESKOM, which has been disconnecting
users who cannot afford to pay their bills. It was organised by the Soweto Electricity
Crisis Committee (SECC) which has trained activists in how to reconnect people's power
supplies. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Friday, 15 March 2002 |
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We are pleased to announce the publication on the internet of Richard Monroe's history of
the ANC movement. This pamphlet, written in the 1980s, deals extensively with the
struggles of the 1950s and the tactics adopted by the middle-class ANC leaders, who
favoured negotiations with the "progressive" section of the capitalists. It was
originally printed in issue 13 of Inqaba ya Basebenzi ("Workers'
Fortress"), the publication of the Marxist Workers' Tendency of the African National
Congress in March 1984. Now we have an ANC government in power which is pursuing
capitalist policies, and we have new layers of workers moving into struggle to fight for
their interests. The question is whether this time the mass movement will have a bold
revolutionary leadership worthy of the name. In building such a leadership, a careful and
detailed study of the lessons of the past is indispensable. We hope that this document can
help clarify some of the key issues from the history of the movement and will assist those
today fighting for the socialist transformation of society. With a new introduction by Jordi Martorell. |
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By Jordi Martorell
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Thursday, 14 March 2002 |
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The Western imperialists were very quick to brand the recent elections in Zimbabwe
undemocratic, but there is no shortage of undemocratic and rigged elections in the African
continent. Jordi Martorell takes a timely look at the history of the country since
independence in 1980; its relations with the IMF, and why the imperialists have switched
their support from Zanu-PF to the MDC. He says the main lesson to be drawn from the
history of Zimbabwe in the last 20 years is precisely that genuine national liberation
cannot be achieved simply by winning formal independence and democratic rights, but only
by the overthrow of the capitalist system itself. Capitalism has sufficiently proven its
inability all over Africa to solve any of the problems facing the masses. It is time for a
socialist alternative, based on the democratic planning of the continent's vast resources
by the workers and peasants themselves.
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By Pravasan Pillay
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Monday, 02 April 2001 |
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AIDS ACTION recently staged a successful march in Durban against pharmaceutical company
Merck over its part in the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations Court action against
the South African government. Pravasan Pillay, an AIDS ACTION activist, charts the genesis
of the March Against Merck. |
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By Jordi Martorell
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Thursday, 15 March 2001 |
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Nearly 40 South African pharmaceutical companies are taking the South African government
to court in order to defend their massive profits, even if this means the death of
millions of people who are HIV positive. The case opened at the Pretoria High Court on
March 5th. This article examines how the profit motive of the pharmaceutical
multinationals prevails over the lives of millions of people. |
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By Comrade Moore
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Thursday, 16 November 2000 |
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"It's a great pity that Botswana always either receives no coverage or receives
coverage which paints a false rosy picture of the so-called 'success story' by World Bank
standards" This letter from a Botswanan comrade tries to give a different
perspective.
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Wednesday, 01 November 2000 |
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By Jordi Martorell
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Monday, 30 October 2000 |
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On Saturday October 21st, nearly 40,000 people participated in 14 marches and 5 pickets
all over South Africa to protest against racist and discriminatory banking practices. The
day of action, called the 'Red Saturday', was organised by the South African Communist
Party as part of their Red October Campaign. This article looks at the way South African
banks discriminate against working class and poor people and argues that the SACP should
have raised the issue of nationalisation of the banks. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Tuesday, 24 October 2000 |
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We have received the following solidarity appeal from the Swaziland Solidarity Network.
Swaziland has been under state of emergency since 1973. In the last few days a number of leading activists of the Swaziland Youth
Congress have been arrested and tortured. In protest a group of trade unionists and left
activists have now occupied the US embassy in the capital. We appeal to all labour
movement, youth and left-wing activists to express their solidarity with the Swazi
comrades and protest against the repressive actions of the regime.
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By Jordi Martorell
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Wednesday, 17 May 2000 |
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As much as half of South Africa's workforce participated in a 24-hour nation-wide general
strike called by the 1.8 million strong Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) on
May 10th. The main reason for the strike was the jobs crisis but it did reflect a wider
discontent with the pro-capitalist policies of the ANC government. The article argues that
talking about socialism is not enough and that the leaders of the SA Communist Pary and
COSATU should break with the capitalist wing of the ANC and put forward a clear socialist
alternative. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Thursday, 27 April 2000 |
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This document was written by Zimbabwean socialists in 1985 and deals in detail with the
history of the struggle against colonialism, the character of the Mugabe regime and the
tasks facing socialists in Zimbabwe at that time. We have decided to republish it here to
give revolutionary activists in Southern Africa and in the rest of the world a better
understanding of the background to the current crisis.
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By Jean Duval
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Thursday, 20 April 2000 |
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All the world media have turned their attention to Zimbabwe in recent months since
landless peasants started occupying white-owned big commercial farms. The press has
unleashed a hysterical campaign against those land occupations which they depict as
illegal and violent. They completely ignore the responsibility of capitalism and
imperialism for robbing the land of the black peasants and pushing them into utter
poverty. How do the white settlers dare to say those lands are theirs! When they robbed
the lands of the blacks peasants they used all the violent means of repression possible.
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By Sue Norris
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Thursday, 16 March 2000 |
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Capitalism can't be blamed for the weather, but the disaster which hit this
impoverished country has been made a thousand times worse by their inability to do
anything that isn't profit motivated. The price of lives is weighed up against what they
can buy and how they can be used.
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By Jordi Martorell
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Wednesday, 16 June 1999 |
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On June 2nd the ANC won, as was expected, a landslide victory in South Africa's second
democratic election. This article looks at the policies of the first term of the ANC
government, the debates within the South African Communist Party, and the perspectives for
the next five years. |
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By Jordi Martorell
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Friday, 15 January 1999 |
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"Victory is certain! The struggle continues! Amandla!" With these
slogans, Jacob Mamabolo, president of the South African Students Congress, closed his
political report to the organisation¥s 7th Annual Congress. The Congress, which took
place at the Vaal Triangle Technikon from December 1st to December 5th, with the
participation of 600 delegates and visitors, did not discuss just purely student issues,
but dealt with the main debates and challenges facing the South African revolutionary
movement at present. |
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By Ted Grant and Alan Woods
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Thursday, 25 June 1998 |
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It is nearly seven years since George Bush, the then president of the US, made
his famous "New World Order" speech. This was in 1991. In the build-up to the
Gulf War the main imperialist power on earth promised a world without wars, without
dictatorships and, of course, a world firmly under the control of a single all-powerful
world policeman--the US. After the fall of Stalinism, US imperialism really thought that
the world would be firmly under their command and they would be able to dictate the
destiny of each and every country. Now all these dreams have been reduced to rubble. In
this document Ted Grant and Alan Woods make an in-depth analysis of the history of the
imperialist domination of the Third World and the way. |
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