Workers Day, May 1st, will be marked this year with a COSATU national Rally in Bloemfontein, Free State Province. ________________________________
South Africa's May Day [cid:[email protected]] The Working-Class Heart of Our History A resource-book for educators Introduction Local organisation comes first and it leads to organisation at the national scale. Nationalism is the building block of Internationalism. May the First is the International Workers Day. This year, we are proud to celebrate the South African May Day, because the story of May Day forms a central part of South African history. May Day, 1950, is at the heart of the South African liberation struggle. We intend to honour the central place of the working class in the South African liberation struggle, and its consequently central place in the national democratic revolutionary alliance that continues our liberation struggle, which is not yet over. This resource booklet will show that the history, and the personalities that carried forward the history of the liberation movement, have their centre of gravity in the organised working class; and that the tragic but heroic events of May Day 1950 stand as a historic sacrament, whereby the three principal components of our Alliance were permanently joined together. The unity forged on that day has been our strength. It will continue to be our strength. Part 1 The Distant Clap of Thunder "No Labour Movement without the Black Proletariat: The whole of the working class, white and black, [can] march unitedly forward to their common emancipation from wage slavery." With these words the International Socialist League, our early anti-Imperialist vanguard party of the working class and fore-runner of the Communist Party, raised the banner of non-racial trade unionism in South Africa. Two years later, in 1919, the mighty ICU (Industrial and Commercial Workers Union) was formed by Clements Kadalie. It grew over the next few years into the largest secular mass organisation the country had ever seen. Two years later again, in 1921, the non-racial Communist Party of South Africa was formally admitted to the Communist International in Revolutionary Russia. It soon adopted the Black Republic Thesis, thereby becoming the first party in South Africa to call for black majority rule in the country. The ICU was destroyed when its leadership was persuaded to expel the communists. It fell victim to corruption and splits and by the early 1930s it was effectively dead. The fall of the ICU is a warning to us today. Sectarian anti-communism, open or disguised, is a poison to the organised working class. [cid:[email protected]] SACP poster for Moses Kotane In the late 1920s, Moses Maune Kotane and John Beaver Marks joined the Communist Party of South Africa. Both of them joined the African National Congress, as well. Moses Kotane became the General Secretary of the vanguard party of the working class in 1939. Two years later, in 1941, in a meeting of the Transvaal ANC, a union was planned and set up which was to be led by J B Marks. Marks went on to lead the historic African Mineworkers Strike of 1946 - the "Distant Clap of Thunder" that heralded the arrival of the real, and eventually victorious, organised mass movement for liberation in South Africa. It is appropriate to remember that as the SACP's document records: "most [of the heroic 1946 strikers] were not South Africans but Mozambicans, Tanganyikans, Angolans, Nyasas, recruited from afar, or Basotho, Bechuana or Swazis recruited from what were then still 'British Protectorates.'" [cid:[email protected]] SACP poster for J B Marks Kotane led the CPSA, and then the SACP, for nearly four decades until his death. Both Kotane and Marks held high offices of leadership in the African National Congress at various times throughout their political lives. The Republic of South Africa's profile of J B Marks, published on the occasion of the repatriation and reburial of his remains in South Africa, records part of his contribution thus: "Notably, the 1 May 1950 strike which brought the country to a halt and the June 26 strike in the same year in protest against the shooting of strikers on 1 May. It was a turning point and a great landmark in the long history of the struggle of the people of South Africa against racial persecution and for full trade union rights." It is this turning point that we are celebrating on the 1st of May, as the South African May Day, because as much as was the Congress of the People, and the Freedom Charter, that were some of the later consequences of what happened on that day in 1950, this was a founding moment of our victory. ~ * ~ __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 15020 (20170302) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com ________________________________ [http://imageshack.com/a/img32/381/6b28.png] E-mail Disclaimer: The information contained in this communication is confidential and may be legal privileged. It is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and others authorised to received it. 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