New Age2.png Gratitude extended to contributors of social growth Phatse Justice Piitso, The New Age*, Johannesburg, 19 August 2016 My open letter is a symbolic gesture to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the birthday of the Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban socialist revolution, Comrade Fidel Castro. There is no more beautiful occasion than to celebrate a day on which the umbilical cord of such a colossal of our struggle, and a precious gift of all humanity, was cut from the womb of his mother. On the occasion of the celebration of the birthday of such an outstanding revolutionary of the century, and the legendary figure of the proletariat struggles, we take the opportunity to express our gratitude to him, his family and the heroic people of the socialist republic of Cuba. WE SAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF!! MAY THE GLORY OF OUR REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLES KEEP YOU YOUNGER THAN EVER BEFORE!! WE LOVE YOU!! Today, on the occasion of his birthday, we need to appreciate that his contribution to the development of society is unparalleled to Prometheus, the son of the titan from planet Jupiter. Fidel is like the legend Prometheus, the one who carries the torch, to bring light to the future of humanity. Cde Fidel Castro belongs to the category of the few but the better. Cde Fidel is a special mould: He is a mountain eagle. Cde Fidel belongs to a rare species: He belongs to the future generations of man to come. Cde Fidel is a communist: He belongs to the future of human progress. Ours is nothing else but to pride ourselves that we are witness to this special occasion, of the 90th anniversary celebrations, of the birth of the rebel leader of the July 26 Movement, a rebel leader of the Moncada rebellion, a rebel leader of the Granma expedition, and a rebel leader of the Sierra Maestra mountains. Ours is nothing else but to pride ourselves that we are witness to this special occasion, of the 90th anniversary celebrations, of the birth of a rebel leader of the heroic battle of Playa Giron, a rebel leader of the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, a rebel leader of the world liberation movement, and a rebel leader of the world socialist revolution. Fidel is a true revolutionary with a human heart. He is a revolutionary with a great sense of humility, the desire to be a humble servant of the people. This is a value and characteristic feature of a father figure, a value that leadership is not a virtue, but an opportunity given by the people to learn. Fidel has traversed the whole path of his life leading the struggles for the emancipation of the suffering people of the world. Throughout his life he has demonstrated preponderance to be the greatest servant of mankind. Extraordinary These are extraordinary leadership qualities of a revolutionary imbued by the philosophical preposition that the development of society is not determined by the ideas and wishes of individual leaders, but by the development of material conditions existent in society. He is an apostle of our revolutionary movement who understands that heroes and outstanding individuals may play an important role in the life of society, only in so far as they are capable of understanding the conditions of development of society, and the ways of changing them for the better. That heroes and outstanding individuals may become counter-revolutionary if their ideas and wishes are not consistent with the needs of the development of society, and that they may only be outstanding if their ideas and wishes correctly express the needs of the development of society. Heroes and outstanding individuals may become ridiculous and useless failures if they do not correctly understand conditions of development of society and also countering the historical needs of society in the conceited belief that they are the "makers of history". Fidel never concurred with the amorphous theory that the role of outstanding leaders is to reduce the masses of our people into an opium. It cannot be heroes who make history, but history which makes heroes. The history of the world revolutionary movement has never reduced the struggle of our people to individual actions of Kings, Guards or Bishops. The leadership of the world revolutionary movement has always understood its historic role from the point of view of taking collective responsibility for our common purpose. The philosophy of historical and dialectical materialism highlights that the highest forms of human consciousness is the only guarantee to safeguard any revolutionary process, because a revolution is the highest form of class struggle. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels elevated this question with the understanding that a revolutionary process in the form of the building of socialism is not an invention of dreamers, but a living scientific theory, a scientific theory which comes out of the study of the development of modern capitalist society. Liberation Movement into Communist Party I am posing this important theoretical question on the basis that we are taking about a communist, Cde Fidel Castro. We are taking about a leader who has transformed a national liberation movement into a Communist Party. Fidel profoundly understands the theoretical question that a revolution is constituted by two fundamental pillars, which are organisation and Marxism-Leninism, scientific theory and practice. The Communist Party is a vanguard party, it is comprised of the most advanced sections of the working class and Marxism-Leninism is a revolutionary theory which is not a dogma, but a guide to lead the working class towards the revolutionary action of seizure of power. The Communist Party forms the vanguard of the working class, a special mould of a political party which is the guiding force of the working class and the leading detachment of society. At the heart of the vanguard leadership role of the Communist Party is the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the historic mission through which the working class is destined to vanquish capitalism and build socialism, which will ultimately usher a communist society, the highest form of human organisation. Cde Vladimir Lenin says the following about the political significance of theory and organisation of the working class: "without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement. The role of the vanguard can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advance theory". The principal motive force here is the form of the organisation of a vanguard party; a party armed with the knowledge of the life of society, of the laws of its development and class struggle; a party able to lead the working class and to direct its struggle. This is the kind of a party that inspired Fidel to lead the struggle of the people of the world against imperialism and colonialism - the struggles to emancipate humanity from the shackles of oppression and exploitation. The Communist Party became an embryo from which he transformed a despotic neo-colonial Island of Cuba into a powerhouse that became to be a university of the world proletariat revolution today; an island that has become the political school of the world revolutionary movement. Under the tutelage of Fidel, Cuba became the first socialist state ever in the history of the American hemisphere, and the first revolutionary state to defeat the empire in a battlefield. Playa Giron and Cuito Cuanavale Yes, it is a fact the Communist Party of Cuba defeated the American military force during the battle of Playa Giron. In fact not once but twice, if things are to be narrated in the correct perspective, the Communist Party of Cuba defeated the American empire again during the battle of Cuito Cuanavale. Through its organisation as a vanguard party, the Communist Party of Cuba defeated the most horrendous economic blockades ever in the history of humanity. It became a fortress of the Cuban revolution for over fifty years of a vicious offensive by the Yankee empire. The Communist Party of Cuba has proven itself to be the best form of an organisation. Today Cuba has the best health and education system in the world. The Cuban Communist Party is the only organisation of society which has paid its debt to the millions of the African people, who were forced as slaves by the colonial masters to work in the sugar plantations and the economy of the Island. It is during his birthday that we must make more noise to the ears of the empire, to the outgoing President of the empire Barack Obama, to end the over-fifty-years blockade against the innocent people of Cuba. For over fifty years, the empire has punished the Cuban Communist Party for having established a socialist state at its own doorstep. The blockade has become genocide against the people. It is indeed a crime against humanity. Unfolding political events in South Africa I wonder what Fidel will say about the unfolding political events in our country? I cannot speak on his behalf but I am sure that he is deeply worried. We have just lost the majority of our metropolitan municipalities to the opposition. The white racist party, the Democratic Alliance, has assumed political power in most of our municipalities in the metropolitan areas. Infantile disorder and reckless adventurism has raised its flag on the roof of the capital city of our democratic republic. Tshwane is in the hands of counter-revolution. This is a political situation which needs our best of calmness. We need a deeper reflection and self-introspection. Collective responsibility Over the weekend the national executive committee of the ANC took a collective responsibility on the outcomes of the recent local government elections. It my view this was indeed a hallmark decision reminiscent of the revolutionary character of the ANC as a national liberation movement. This will surely create the necessary climate for a robust and sober analysis of the concrete material conditions within the ranks of our movement and our society in general. This is a magnanimous intervention which will accelerate possibilities for the analysis of the balance of forces and how they seek to dictate on the pace of our struggle for socio-economic transformation of society. We must never forget that a revolutionary movement is not invincible if it fears criticism and self-criticism. Therefore we all need to appreciate the ability of the leadership of the ANC to take collective responsibility for its own actions. Vladimir Lenin says the following about the principle of criticism and self-criticism: "The attitude of a political party towards its own mistakes is one of the most important and surest way of judging how correct the party is and how it in practice fulfils its obligations towards its people. "Frankly admitting a mistake, ascertaining the reason for it, analyzing the conditions that led to it, analysing the conditions that led to it, and thoroughly discussing the means of correcting it, that is the earmark of a serious party, that is the way it should perform its duties, that is the way it should educate its people. "All revolutionary parties, which have hitherto perished, did so because they grew conceited, failed to see where their strength lay and feared to speak of their weaknesses. But we shall not perish, for we do not fear to speak of our weaknesses and learn to overcome them". At all times when a revolution bumps at a wall, the first question to be asked is: Where is the Communist Party? This question is asked at all times because people know that the Communist Party is the most advanced section of our society. Willingly or unwillingly so, they understand very well that the Communist Party is the best equipped to provide solutions to the problems they face. Meaning that society in general appreciates the leadership role of the Party in the struggle for national liberation. Therefore the question we need to ask ourselves is whether our party is playing its vanguard role during our transition for the establishment of our democratic republic - whether our party is playing its vanguard role during this critical period of the second phase of our transition for the creation of a national democratic society? I am sure you agree with me that the leading role of the working class in the current period of our struggle constitutes the vanguard of our struggle for the victory of our national democratic revolution; and also that the leading role of the Communist Party in the current phase of our struggle, is the essential step in our forward march to the future socialist society. Lenin teaches us that: "the proletariat should not keep itself aloof from the bourgeois revolution, not to be indifferent to it, in its own interest, the working class should strive to lead the national democratic revolution and not to allow the leadership of the revolution to be assumed by the bourgeoisie, but on the contrary, to take the most energetic part in it, to fight resolutely for consistent proletarian democracy, for the revolution to be carried to its logical conclusion". He further says that: "we must not forget, that there is no nor can there be, at the present time, any other means of bringing socialism nearer, than complete political liberty, than a democratic republic. "From the democratic revolution we shall at once, and just in accordance with the measure of our strength, the strength of the class conscious and organized proletariat begin to pass to the socialist revolution. We stand for uninterrupted revolution. We shall not stop half-way". The lessons we should all learn is that a nation which does not value its own historical past cannot accomplish the objectives of its future. History of any nation is the one which determines the present and the future. Struggle continues Many people think that our liberation struggle ended up with the transfer of power from the racist white minority regime to the majority of the black people of our country. They do not appreciate the notion that the end of apartheid was the beginning of more protracted struggles for socio-economic transformation of society. They do not understand that political power is not only about a rainbow nation, is not about a national flag, a national anthem, but about the ownership of the means of the production of our economy by the majority of our people, and that a complete liberation is about emancipation our people from both the political and economic domination by imperialism. Over the years we have characterised the South African situation to be a British and colonialism of a special type, the political situation of apartheid colonialism. This theoretical formulation is out of the analysis that the South African economy was such that the British imperialism commanded the economic heights of our country with the participation of the Afrikaner bourgeoisie. In other words British imperialism exploited the economy of our country with the help of the local Afrikaner bourgeoisie. The important history to narrate to the young South Africans is that colonialism of a special type was imposed by the most advanced industrial Britain. She ensured that the white bourgeoisie expropriated the land of the indigenous people of our country without compensation, seized the life stock of the African people, and even imposed their forced labour in the mines, factories and farms. Therefore the biggest threats to our national democratic revolution are the contradictions imposed by neo-colonialism of a special type to our democracy. Our former colonial power, Britain, is collaborating with the South African white bourgeoisie to determine the pace of our transition to democracy. Our former colonial power, the British Empire, is part of the counter-revolutionary effort to undermine the leadership role of our national liberation movement in the transformation of our country. This is a worldwide phenomenon, of former colonial powers undermining the struggles of the people in their former colonies and semi-colonies. These are the difficult questions we need to ask ourselves. We are the generation of the future. I wish Fidel give us the wisdom to understand the world better. I wish he gives us more answers to the problems facing the people of the world. I wish him more prosperous days! We love Fidel! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! . Phatse Justice Piitso is the former Ambassador to the republic of Cuba and the former provincial secretary of the SACP writing this article on his personal capacity. From: http://tnaepaper.co.za/DRIVE/main%20edition/19082016/epaperpdf/20.pdf *Original text __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 13986 (20160819) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. 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