*Socialism in our Lifetime* *'We are here to stay and make a revolution'*
Today marks the 10th Anniversary of the re-launch of the YCLSA. In 2003 December more than 500 delegates met at the Vaal University of Technology to officially make their collective date with history and make their mark in the course of building socialism NOW. Meeting under the theme: Crush Capitalism! Build Socialism Now, learners from schools, students from colleges and universities, young workers aligned to the trade union movement, unemployed young people, and youth from villages and the rural countryside, young professionals in the public and private sectors and committed cadres of the Party declared that theirs will henceforth be to dedicate their energy in building this the Young Communist League of South Africa and fighting for socialism. These cadres, inspired by Chule "KK" Papiyane, Ruth First, Ahmed Kathrada, Smiso Nkwanyana, Joe Slovo, Linda "The Lion of Chiawelo" Jabane, Esther Barsel, Johannes Nkosi, to name but a few, sought to engage in the daunting task of building socialism in their lifetime as a society that represented the highest forms of liberation. The YCLSA was officially formed on 25 May 1922. It was the first political youth formation in the country to advance the principles of non-racial political organisation. Its leaders at the time argued that there shall be no basis for socialism if its organisation excluded black South African youth, and thus went out to recruit across the colour bar in laying the basis for a future South Africa. The YCLSA became inactive for some time in the late 1930's when many of its leaders were to become central in the leadership of the Communist Party, then the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). It was resuscitated when a group of young cadres who were studying at Wits, including Eddie Roux, Joe Slovo, Ruth First and Ahmed Kathrada approached the SACP headquarters with the intention to be active young communists. In 1943 a structure was formed led by Ruth First as its National Secretary. However, seven years later, through the Suppression of Communism Act (1950), the CPSA was banned together with all other related communist organisation and individuals resulting the banning of the Young Communist League of South Africa. When the SACP was re-launched in 1953, underground, the YCLSA was not relaunched. Many of the YCLers were to become active members and leaders of the SACP in the underground cells. Since then, many young communists found expression in the structures of the SACP, ANC and uMkhonto we Sizwe. Young Communists were active in the student movement, the underground, the civic movement, the trade union movement and in any other formations of mass resistance against the apartheid regime. Many of them did not display arrogance or superiority amongst their peers but sought to serve as exemplary in the impending struggle against apartheid and colonial exploitation. At most material times, the nerve centre of SACP organisation was led by young people who were the most dedicated to the downfall of apartheid and the building of a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa in there is a better life for all. When the SACP was unbanned in 1990 together with all the other political parties, it did not re-establish the YCLSA. Although there were many young communist cadres who strongly believed and pushed for its re-launch, it was only at the 10th Congress that the SACP mandated its provincial structures to establish youth desks whose work was to be a basis for assessment of whether a communist youth league was viable. This was done. And many YCL cadres (as they were already known throughout party structures) also became active in other youth and student's formations. Finally, in 2002 at the SACP's 11th Congress, a resolution was taken for the re-establishment of the YCLSA. This was a watershed resolution and was followed with an establishment of a National Steering Committee led by Jacob Mamabolo and Dipuo Mvelase. Working tirelessly, the steering committee established Provincial Steering Committees and ultimately convened a National Consultative Conference in 2002 that resulted in the ultimate re-launch and re-establishment of the YCLSA in December 2003. In that Congress, the YCLSA sought to distinguish itself from all other youth and student formations by mainly focusing on campaigns and practical programmes that sought to directly change the lives of young people. In particular, the YCLSA would serve as a dedicated preparatory school of the Communist Party, recruiting, mobilising and rallying young people behind the policies and programmes of the Party. The YCLSA immediately embarked on working together with the Progressive Youth Alliance, youth NGO's, community based youth formations and student organisations in order to ensure that their campaigns find expression in the widest of platforms and structures available and possible. The YCLSA launched a campaign targeting youth jointly with other organisations on the provision of anti-retroviral drugs and awareness on HIV/AIDS. This campaign also sought to draw in youth from the churches, sports and cultural activists and was instrumental in building consciousness amongst youth on HIV and related issues. National youth workshops and seminars were convened by the YCLSA to campaign on the challenge of HIV/AIDS, and to consolidate a youth voice opposed to government's policy of HIV/AIDS which at the time was denialist and to push to treatment. The YCLSA also fixed its eyes on the question of education, and for the first time within the PYA the question of free education was raised more sharply. This led to the ANC Youth League (subsequent to its Nasrec I Conference), SASCO, COSAS and the YCLSA adopting a common youth programme on education. This went further than the mere call for education, but extended the call to the education alliance and the adoption of an Education Charter (which was also adopted by SADTU). The YCLSA adopted the Joe Slovo Right to Learn Campaign and now under the theme 'Making Education fashionable'. This campaign is meant to ensure that communities take control of the education of their children, from the upkeep of the facilities to the timeous delivery of textbooks, from the closure of shebeens and other alcohol outlets next to schools to ensuring that teachers teach and learners learn, from taking control of their school feeding schemes to ensuring that Grade 12 and all lower grades results are improved. This is a campaign more to ensure that parents are at the centre of their children's education than naked government opposition. Many schools where the YCLSA was involved, results were improved. This is the work that everyone within communities should ensure that they not only emulate, but also take forward. In 2007 a young man threatened to take his life. His story was heard live on Y-FM. He had applied for an ID document for years and nothing was coming forth. This was a blatant highlight of the frustrations many teenagers faced with the department of Home Affairs. We immediately launched the Kabelo Thibedi Campaign, named after the young man. This campaign saw more than 100 000 people receiving their IDs through the efforts of the campaign. This work was even seen as his mitigation in his case against the state. The YCLSA also made prolific campaigns for the inquest on the assassination of the late General Secretary of the SACP, Comrade Chris Hani; the 10 Youth Demands, the call for the circumcision of young boys as part of the fight against HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases; a campaign for the reform of initiation schools); a call against the gender stereo-types imposed by virginity testing and the campaign for the provision of sanitary towels for young girls. Most of these campaigns were based on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and had a direct impact on the day to day lives of young girls and boys. This, the YCLSA will never abandon. Although some of this campaigns led to either government improved services or were adopted by government and civil society, this does not mean that we should ever abandon the struggle for the emancipation of all young people and the daily battles they face as they struggle with the system of capitalism. Our unique contribution in dealing with these and other challenges facing the youth is our resoluteness against the system of capitalist exploitation, which is the cause of the many problems facing the youth. Perhaps one of the greatest challenges that face the current generation of youth organisations is that of *unemployment, inequality and poverty*. This is the inherent struggle of working class communities against capitalism. There can be no lasting solution and intervention against these forms of struggles without defeating capitalism and ushering a socialist future. However, it remains our responsibility, so long as we organise workers and the youth in the struggle for such a society, to also fight for revolutionary reforms that will alleviate the evils of capitalism. At the centre of these revolutionary reforms through which the YCLSA seeks to improve the quality of life of the youth, is the call made in the 1848 Communist Manifest by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels - the greatest theoreticians of class struggle - for communists to fight for the achievement of the immediate aims and the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class while taking care of the future of the entire working class movement, i.e. fighting for the downfall of capitalism, organising, educating, mobilising, propagating and building capacity for socialism in the here and now and ultimately the realisation of communism. The YCLSA's Jobs for Youth Campaign, with summits held annually since 2009, have been central in empowering young people in skills development, social entrepreneurship and co-operatives. The outcomes of the summits also informed the National Youth Accord that government adopted. Future Summits should be used to assess the progress made in relation to the Accord and to keep pace with the times in the fight against the capitalist created unemployment. The same applies to the now annualised Universities and Colleges Based Branches Summit in influencing the direction of education in the country in particular post-school education and training. Through activist campaigns, a lot more has been achieved in influencing government and civil society to ensure that we build unity of the youth movement in building a better society. The Progressive Youth Alliance remains a fighting force for the transformation of society as we know it. Together with the ANC Youth League, SASCO and COSAS, we have been able to, over time, present to our government alternative forms of interventions that needed to be made in youth development. The concept of a youth development agency, although abused in its initial phase, represents a model many countries seek to emulate in the youth development discourse. Our unity as the Progressive Youth Alliance in Student Representative Council elections has led, for the first time in the history of the country, were we achieved victory in all but one institution in last round of elections held in 2013. We remain committed to a united Progressive Youth Alliance whose mandate is to unite young people and create a society we will all be proud of based on a shared perspective of the national democratic revolution that is being led at the macro level by the revolutionary alliance of the Communist Par, the African National Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). The YCLSA pledges its unwavering support to the struggle against imperialism. In recent years as ever imperialist military aggression ravaged many countries the world over and in our continent, destabilising societies and plunging them in war coupled with regime change and the installation of puppet governments while gaining control over and exploiting their resources and labour. In our country South Africa imperialism is trying all it could to recruit young people and orientate them towards opposing our national liberation movement as led by the African National Congress. This includes the establishment and sponsoring of new youth groupings and formations and youth-led political parties. The YCLSA will work endlessly and tirelessly to defeat the imperialist onslaught against our movement. Recently a USA based lobby group and multi-national corporations in the pharmaceutical sector came together to develop a plan against humanity in favour of "strong intellectual property rights" which are actually aimed at nothing but profit. This plan aims to corrupt targeted leaders in our movement, society, government and the so-called prominent individuals including former government leaders or officials and academics who would then be remote controlled from the USA to destabilise our country and block it from adopting a new intellectual property rights policy in favour of humanity. We can only view this broad and far reaching agenda to be limited to the pharmaceutical sector at our own peril. The YCLSA will go all out in defence of our country's policy sovereignty in all sectors of socio-economic and political transformation and development. We shall face off with imperialist groupings, their surrogates and trans-national capitalism head-on. We will engage with the Progressive Youth Alliance and other progressive and revolutionary forces to build a formidable unity against all imperialist machinations in our country, continent and the world over. The 10th Anniversary of YCLSA re-establishment coincides with terminal challenges in the progressive trade union movement as led by the Cosatu and to workers generally. While we believe that the federation has capacity to handle its internal challenges relating to unity and cohesion we however will not fold our arms and reserve our duty to young workers. In the main, these challenges result from the structural and endemic crisis of capitalism. Unfortunately, there are some elements who have bought into treating the ANC, the Communist Party and Cosatu as well as some of its affiliates as the cause of the problem instead of the crisis of imperialism. These elements are identifiable among others by mushrooming unions, de-campaigning of the ANC and calls to workers and Cosatu to abandon the revolutionary alliance and disintegrate into new political organisations. It is our duty as the YCLSA to entrench among young workers and develop scientific clarity about the challenge of exploitation and the need for worker and working class unity. Our message to young workers is that disunity and fragmentation among the workers can only serve the bosses and the exploiters. Whoever is championing disunity and fragmentation and substitute other trade unions for the enemy must be seen to be promoting a programme that ultimately benefits the bosses and exploiters. The YCLSA says young workers, unite, and unite with all other workers! For you are one! -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. 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