Massacre at Cassinga

Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 10a

Massacre at Cassinga

Piero Gleijeses has written a lot. The second and last item in this final part of the “Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace” course is an article of his (download linked below) containing this memorable passage:

“While Castro’s troops advanced toward Namibia, Cubans, Angolans, South Africans, and Americans were sparring at the negotiating table. For the South Africans and Americans the burning question was: Would the Cuban troops stop at the border? It was to answer this question that President Ronald Reagan’s Assistant Secretary for Africa, Chester Crocker, sought Risquet. "My question is the following," he told him: "Does Cuba intend to halt the advance of its troops at the border between Namibia and Angola?" Risquet replied, "I have no answer to give you. I can’t give you a Meprobamato [a well-known Cuban tranquillizer] – not to you or to the South Africans. ... I have not said whether or not our troops will stop. ... Listen to me, I am not threatening. If I told you that they will not stop, it would be a threat. If I told you that they will stop, I would be giving you a Meprobamato, a Tylenol, and I want neither to threaten you nor to reassure you ... What I have said is that the only way to guarantee [that our troops stop at the border] would be to reach an agreement [on the independence of Namibia]." [15] On August 25, Crocker cabled Secretary of State George Shultz: "Reading the Cubans is yet another art form. They are prepared for both war and peace ... We witness considerable tactical finesse and genuinely creative moves at the table. This occurs against the backdrop of Castro’s grandiose bluster and his army’s unprecedented projection of power on the ground." [16]”

War is a terrible thing. War is never a choice for the revolutionaries. We are not pacifists but we do not choose war and we do not choose to be banned or clandestine. We are for peace and for full participation in all democratic fora.

The Cassinga massacre is now more than thirty years in the past. For some of us it was once an event in our present life, very shocking for us because we had though that such horrors were in our own past at the time. For others now living, the Cassinga massacre is now so much in the past that it may be a struggle to see what a huge significance this terrible event had in its time.

Perhaps this reflection is a way of saying that it falls upon all of us, young and old, to strive politically so that such things do not happen again, and do not require again the militarisation of our struggle, here in Southern Africa.

This is the last in the series. Please stay tuned on this channel over the next few days for information of future courses, commencing in the second half of January, 2011.

Please download and read this text:

The Massacre of Cassinga [and after] Piero Gleijeses (2243 words)

Further reading:

Thirty years after Angola and 49 after Granma, Fidel Castro (4108 words)

Liberation Struggle

Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 10

Jorge Risquet Valdés Saldaña

Liberation Struggle

In political education, our method is to remove ourselves in place and time. We go to the “classics” and to authors of the intermediate period, and we study other places, in the past or in the present.

All of these provide us with examples. The examples provide us with a theoretical and practical “sandpit” that gives us a “codification” or in other words a basis upon which we may have a dialogue.

Dialogue is where political education happens. Anything that can provide an occasion for political dialogue is good for education.

Our own history can be used, but what do we find? When looking for history of our liberation struggle, and the history of the armed struggle in particular, we find very little. The materials about the culminating struggle in Angola assembled below will have to suffice for now. They can also serve as a small contribution towards recognising the Cuban and Soviet comrades who fought faithfully and often fell for us, until victory came.

Vladimir Shubin has written and published two books in English: “ANC: A View from Moscow” and “The Hot 'Cold War’: The USSR in Southern Africa”. These books are presently available from bookshops in South Africa, or they can be ordered via the Internet.

The Soviet record of events does not correspond in every respect with the Cuban record, and this contrast would force the readers or students to make judgements of their own, as to what was really the critical path that led to the final political result, which was victory in Angola, Namibia and South Africa. Let us hope to find a suitable Soviet or Russian article in electronic form before this course gets run again.

Fidel Castro has written a lot. Linked below, as our main item, is the speech he made on 2 December 2005, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the first Cuban expeditionary force to Angola, which became what Chester Crocker called an “unprecedented projection of power”.

Jorge Risquet Valdés Saldaña, fighter, negotiator, and currently member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, has written (in Spanish) “El Segundo frente del Che en el Congo” (ISBN 959-210-412-3, Casa Editorial Abril, 2006) – the history of the Patrice Lumumba Battalion, in which Risquet served. The picture above is of the same Jorge Risquet, a great and brave hero, also famous for his friendliness and joie-de-vivre.

Please download and read this text:

Thirty years after Angola and 49 after Granma, Fidel Castro (4108 words)

Further reading:

The Massacre of Cassinga [and after] Piero Gleijeses (2243 words)

Citizen and Subject

Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 9a

Mahmood Mamdani

Citizen and Subject

Mahmood Mamdani’s “Citizen and Subject” (downloadable extract linked below) maps the relations of four class-based powers in the anti-Imperial struggles in Africa: Bourgeois, Proletarians, Imperialists and “Traditional Leaders”. The (national) Bourgeois and the Proletarians are the modernisers and the democrats, who are compelled by necessity to combine together to fight for the democracy that forms the nation.

Capitalism has failed, and Imperialism has failed. In South Africa, capitalist Imperialism arrived more than 100 years ago, and it never delivered to the people or even employed more than a fraction of them at any time. It started bad and it got no better. Recently it has gone from a boom from which the masses somehow failed to benefit, to a recession that will last for years. What’s new? The same excuses have been there all along. Maybe it is truer to say that Imperialism didn’t fail: it only lied. It was never going to deliver, and it never will.

Walter Rodney, 1942-1980

Like Issa Shivji and Walter Rodney (author of “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”, also downloadable in [1069 KB] PDF format by clicking here) Professor Mamdani is a cadre of the famous Dar-es-Salaam campus. He is now Director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) in his native Uganda, and previously served in many capacities including at Columbia University, New York, USA, and the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Note that Mamdani's sense of the word “subject” in this work is different and opposite from the usual communist, or philosophical one. Here it means a subordinate person, like for example the subject of a king, and not a free person.

In the book, Mamdani’s principal insight is to recognise the class alliance typically sought by the Imperialists in neo-colonial Africa countries. According to Mamdani, the Imperialists prefer to ally with the most backward rural feudal elements (often called “traditional leaders” or “chiefs” in Africa) in opposition to the modernising bourgeoisie and proletariat of the cities and towns.

Mamdani regards South Africa as the classic case in this regard, although he quotes many other examples. Mamdani’s analysis stands in contrast with a common presumption, namely that the Imperialist monopoly-capitalists tend to work through “compradors”, who are local aspirant bourgeoisie, or bourgeoisie-for-rent, who do the Imperialists work for them.

Such compradors do exist, and clearly they exist in South Africa. Yet Mamdani’s scheme reflects the facts and history of Imperialism in Africa better, at least up to now. Imperialism is in general hostile to the national bourgeoisie. The typical neo-colonial war of recent decades, including the Iraq war, and the long war against Afghanistan, is a war of Imperialism against a national bourgeoisie that wants national sovereignty and control over its country’s national resources.

In the light of this analysis it becomes easier to see why it is that the South African proletariat has long been, via the ANC, in alliance with parts of its national bourgeoisie, for national liberation, against the monopoly-capitalist oppressors with their Imperial-globalist links.

The Imperialists make a marriage of convenience with the most retrogressive social power that they can find – tribalism – in a pact to hold Africa where it was under colonialism: partly rich, but mostly dirt poor. In South Africa the Imperialists relied heavily on Bantustan leaders and on the Inkatha Freedom Party, but the ANC was able to form better links with the rural as well as with the urban masses, thus achieving a class alliance that could and in fact did dominate the country in terms of mass support.

Please download and read this text:

Citizen and Subject, Chapter 8, 1996, Mamdani (7236 words)

Further reading:

The Struggle for Democracy & Culture, 2003, Shivji (5035 words)

Democracy is Ours

Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 9

Eduardo Mondlane, 1920-1969

Democracy is Ours

This part is the penultimate (second last) in the present series on Anti-Imperialism, Peace, and Socialism. It is designed to invite comrades to reflect upon the place of the anti-Imperialist struggle within the entirety of world history.

This is why Issa Shivji’s address on The Struggle for Democracy and Culture (linked below) is used. It explicitly and correctly claims, on behalf of the national-liberation and anti-colonial struggle, that this struggle carries, for the time being, the banner of progress for the whole world. For a long time past, and into the future, until such time as the struggle for socialism itself becomes once again the principal one, the National Democratic Revolutions taken together constitute the main vehicle for human progress, bearing and rescuing all that is noble and fine in humanity.

The bourgeoisie is a thieving class and it will steal the clothes of the revolutionaries without any hesitation if it sees the smallest, or the most temporary, advantage in doing so. The Imperialist bourgeoisie wishes to reverse the appearance of its shameful past and of its hopeless future. It wishes to claim the moral superiority that the liberation movement has, and steal it.

Frantz Fanon, 1925-1961

Issa Shivji shows very clearly how the monstrous fraud is attempted. The constant droning about “good governance” is the extreme of hypocrisy, coming as it does from the worst oppressors in history – the force that has taken oppression to the ends of the earth – Imperialism. Read Shivji. He tells it well. But also note the hypocritical machinations of our present South African anti-communists, including but not limited to, the DA. If you did not know better, you could start to believe from what you read that it was liberal whites who liberated South Africa from the old regime.

Issa Shivji

The struggle for democracy is ours, not theirs. The struggle for freedom is ours. We are the humanists now. We, the liberationists, are the principal creators of human history and we have been for many decades past. The 20th Century was the liberation century and the first anti-Imperial century. That was when we overtook the others in politics, in morality, and in philosophy - but we were only starting. In the 21st Century we will finish the job, and finish with Imperialism altogether.

Please download and read this text:

The Struggle for Democracy & Culture, 2003, Shivji (5035 words)

Further reading:

Citizen & Subject, Chapter 8, 1996, Mamdani (7236 words)

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 8c

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Finally, to underline the ruthlessness of the Imperialist enemy, “the US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... was meant to kick-start the Cold War [against the Soviet Union, Washington's war-time ally] rather than end the Second World War”.

This statement is taken from Norm Dixon’s article “Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Worst terror attacks in history” published in Green Left Weekly, August 3, 2005 (download linked below).

The two worst-ever terrorist attacks, by far, were perpetrated by the USA, for the most cynical and mendacious reasons.

Images of what resulted in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are abundantly available on the Internet but they ones that show people, whether alive or dead, are too terrible to use here.

To this day the USA does not face up to what it has done by these too vile acts.

This course is on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace. We cannot leave this thing out. We have to note that the USA power that did these unspeakable things is still active in the world, and still, as it was then, is active in the cause of its own dominance over the rest of us. The list of its crimes continues to grow longer every day.

Please download and read this text:

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Worst Ever Terror Attacks, Dixon (813 words)

Further reading:

Neo-Colonialism, Last of Imperialism, 1965, Nkrumah (10643 words)

First They Came For The Communists, Niemoeller (1873 words)

Beyond Vietnam, Time to Break Silence, 1967, King (6687 words)

First They Came for the Communists

Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 8b

Pastor Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984

First They Came for the Communists

First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing.

Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing.

Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist.

And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little.

Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.

Pastor Niemöller

The third linked document opens up the double question of who backs the communists, and if the communists are not backed, then what happens to the others? Attention has to be paid to the question of self-defence for the political movement.

Pastor Niemöller’s story is extraordinary, because it is unexpected. This Pastor, who survived Dachau, does not seem so extraordinary at first.

For revolutionaries it is very moving to record the solidarity of people such as Pastor Niemöller. The revolutionaries must trust the people. They have no choice.

Please download and read this text:

First They Came For The Communists, Niemoeller (1873 words)

Further reading:

Neo-Colonialism, Last of Imperialism, 1965, Nkrumah (10643 words)

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Worst Ever Terror Attacks, Dixon (813 words)

Beyond Vietnam, Time to Break Silence, 1967, King (6687 words) 

Neo-Colonialism, Last Stage of Imperialism

Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 8a

Kwame Nkrumah, 1909-1972

Neo-Colonialism, Last Stage of Imperialism

The second linked document is included here because of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah’s correct and insistent concern with the continuing threat to Africa (now materialising again militarily as “Africom”) posed by Imperialism in its last stage of neo-colonialism.

Nkrumah believed that Africa must unite, for the sole reason that if it did not unite, then it would not have sufficient strength to resist the Imperialists - and so it has turned out.

Nkrumah defined neo-colonialism as follows:

“The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.”

He goes on to add:

“Neo-colonialism is also the worst form of imperialism. For those who practise it, it means power without responsibility and for those who suffer from it, it means exploitation without redress. In the days of old-fashioned colonialism, the imperial power had at least to explain and justify at home the actions it was taking abroad.”

And in his Conclusion Nkrumah says:

“In the earlier chapters of this book I have set out the argument for African unity and have explained how this unity would destroy neo-colonialism in Africa. In later chapters I have explained how strong is the world position of those who profit from neo-colonialism. Nevertheless, African unity is something which is within the grasp of the African people. The foreign firms who exploit our resources long ago saw the strength to be gained from acting on a Pan-African scale. By means of interlocking directorships, cross-shareholdings and other devices, groups of apparently different companies have formed, in fact, one enormous capitalist monopoly. The only effective way to challenge this economic empire and to recover possession of our heritage, is for us also to act on a Pan¬-African basis, through a Union Government.”

Please download and read this text:

Neo-Colonialism, Last Stage of Imperialism, 1965, Nkrumah (10643 words)

Further reading:

First They Came For The Communists, Niemoeller (1873 words)

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Worst Ever Terror Attacks, Dixon (813 words)

Beyond Vietnam, Time to Break Silence, 1967, King (6687 words)

Anti-Imperialism

Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 8

Martin Luther King, 1929 – 1968

Anti-Imperialism

Exactly how the anti-Imperialist struggle will resolve itself in South Africa, Southern Africa, and Africa in general, is something unpredictable at the tactical level. The question of the armed defence of revolutionary change cannot be ruled out, and we have examined this question.

This part of the present series, referenced to the “Beyond Vietnam” speech (linked below) of the late Rev Martin Luther King Junior, is to point to the subjective political factor in the anti-Imperialist struggle.

Nowadays it has become commonplace to refer to “international solidarity” as if it is both a narrow idea, and a universal one. But this concept that we have received, and then stripped of its particularity, generalising it, does actually have a tremendous and specific history whose meaning is not fully conveyed by a formula-phrase called “international solidarity”.

The anti-Imperialist struggle and the democratic struggle can and should be one. It is not a matter of charity of the rich to the poor. It is also not solely a matter of good-hearted and exceptional individuals (but there have indeed been such individuals, and there will be again).

What Martin Luther King describes, and justifies, is: “why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church - the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate - leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.”

In other words, MLK at the meeting of the “Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam” in 1967, was preaching the intrinsic, organic unity of the struggle of the common people everywhere. It is not an artificial altruism but it is a unity of purpose, in concerted action against the single enemy: monopoly capitalist Imperialism.

And further than the literal message, there is also the extraordinary power and style of MLK’s oration. We forget this factor of art too easily. Lenin spoke of “insurrection as an art”. It is an art that goes beyond the military, and encompasses all of our activities. Therefore when reading such a piece as MLK’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, one should regard it as a source of learning of the art of advocacy, which is part of the art of leadership, essential to the art of insurrection.

Picture: Rev. Martin Luther King, Junior, at the White House, Washington DC, USA

Please download and read this text:

Beyond Vietnam, Time to Break Silence, 1967, King (6687 words)

Further reading:

Neo-Colonialism, Last of Imperialism, 1965, Nkrumah (10643 words)

First They Came For The Communists, Niemoeller (1873 words)

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Worst Ever Terror Attacks, Dixon (813 words)

  

Strategy and Tactics

Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 7a

Strategy and Tactics

The ANC’s famous 1969 Strategy and Tactics document adopted in the Morogoro, Tanzania Conference involving O R Tambo, Joe Slovo, Chris Hani and others, is downloadable from the link given below.

Time is short now and as you may have noticed, these posts have speeded up in frequency. This is so as to complete this course on Anti-imperialism, War and Peace and be able to prepare for a new course, on “Basics”, starting in January, 2011.

Therefore the classic Strategy and Tactics document can speak for itself. It is straightforward enough.

Do post any queries or comments you may have, to the list. If you do so, then other comrades will no doubt assist with their inputs. This is how political education is supposed to take place – in dialogue.

To see this series as it has been published for this list, please click here.

There will be some more posts to complete the series, next week.

Picture: Morogoro, Tanzania

Please download and read this text:

Strategy and Tactics, Morogoro, 1969, ANC (5882 words)

Further reading:

1,000 Days of Popular Unity Rule in Chile, 1977, Teitelboim (5157 words)

The Armed People

Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 7

Dedan Kimathi, 1920-1957

The Armed People

The practical alternative to the State that appeared in Paris in the beginning of 1871 was more than simply the right of recall, and the whole people collectively in power and in perpetual session. It was also the reappearance of the Armed People in a new kind of societal framework. So-called Primitive Communism is an Armed People. Here, in the Paris Commune, was an Armed People in advanced productive circumstances.

The security forces - army and police - that had existed before the Paris Commune had been paid to support the bourgeois State and to guarantee the State’s survival by suppressing, whenever necessary, the working class. These forces were disbanded and not replaced. With hardly any exceptions, all “separations of powers” were abolished in the Paris Commune, leaving only one power: The Armed People.

In Chile, in the time of the Popular Unity government that fell on 11 September 1973, instead of an Armed People, a virtue was made of disarmament, and a “Peaceful Path” was worshipped as the new political Golden Calf.

Volodia Teitelboim in the first document linked below, gives a brief description, as one of those who was involved, of the Popular Unity government and its disastrous end at the hands of the fascists who used the national army to overthrow it. It was a shocking reminder of the purpose of the “special bodies of armed men”.

Teitelboim calls for “A Reappraisal of the Issue of the Army,” meaning a return to the view of the Paris Commune, which is mentioned in the first line. This document of Teitelboim’s is sufficient as the basis for a very good and necessary discussion.

The second linked document is the ANC’s original Strategy and Tactics document of 1969. This document unashamedly embraces armed struggle, and not any starry “Peaceful Path”.

Like the Chilean Popular Unity government, ours is a multiclass government underpinned by a class alliance for common goals. It is a unity-in-action, otherwise called a popular front.

Why have we in South Africa survived after 16 years, while the Chileans did not survive after only 1,000 days?

The answer could be that we are not pacifists. Or, the answer could be that our crisis has not arrived yet. Or, that we have passed at least one crisis (e.g. in mid-2008, resolved by the recall of President Mbeki and the resignation of various ministers including Terror Lekota and Mluleki George), which may not yet be the last.

South Africans were in this case in advance of the historic crisis that manifested in Chile. Four years prior to the Pinochet coup in Chile overthrew the Popular Unity government led by Salvador Allende, the Morogoro Conference of the ANC had laid down the necessity for the armed defence of the revolution. we look at this in the next instalment.

Picture: There are very few photographs of freedom fighters in formation or in action to be found on the Internet, whether of MK or any of any other liberation army; but there are many photographs of freedom fighters in captivity. Full justice has not yet been done. The picture is of a statue of Dedan Kimathi under the blue sky of Kenya. AMANDLA!

Please download and read this text:

1,000 Days of Popular Unity Rule in Chile, 1977, Teitelboim (5157 words)

Further reading:

Strategy and Tactics, Morogoro, 1969, ANC (5882 words)

How to Master Secret Work

Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 6b

  

How to Master Secret Work

The third linked item is the 1980 clandestine SACP publication “How to Master Secret Work”. It makes a point that we need here, which is that there is no virtue in being illegal.

The communists do not volunteer for that position. The nature of secret work is really that it is a systematic struggle against banning and persecution. As much as it is secret, yet its purpose is the re-expansion of communication and the re-legalisation of the Party. Its purpose is the renaissance of the organisation politically.

In the case of the SACP, within less than ten years of the publication of this document, the Party was unbanned and declared fully legal again, as it has been ever since, and up to today.

The SACP had been banned and was underground (clandestine) from 1950 to 1990, a total of forty years. All that time the Party struggled to reverse the situation of banning and illegality. It announced its existence with the publication of the African Communist from 1959. “How to Master Secret Work” was published in Umsebenzi.

The great majority of secret work is directed at communicating and in that way, deliberately reversing the banning of the Party, which is primarily an excommunication from society.

There is no imaginable situation where the political vanguard will deliberately choose to be clandestine and make a virtue of its excommunication from the masses. There is no virtue in secrecy.

Unfortunately we have none of the lively  illustrations from this historic document.

Please download and read this text:

How to Master Secret Work, 1980, SACP (13929 words)

Further reading:

Political and Military in Revolutionary War, 1967, Le Duan (864 words)

On the Time for Armed Struggle, 1974, Pomeroy (6800 words)

Political and Military in Revolutionary War

Course on Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 6a

Ho Chi Minh and Le Duan

Political and Military in Revolutionary War

Le Duan’s “Political and Military in Revolutionary War” is a short, powerful piece of writing that manages to include a great deal of wisdom in a few words.

 Le Duan says, confirming Pomeroy:

“… the close combination of political and military struggle constitutes the basic form of revolutionary violence in South Vietnam”

It is hard to introduce such an article as this except to say that it is an example of communist simplicity, brevity and clarity that can hardly be beaten. It is not too short. It is ideal for study circles. If necessary, such an article as this can be read out loud, and serve as its own introduction. It is a good example to anyone who may study, of how to reproduce your theory in plain terms that workers and peasants can understand, without losing any of its quality.

Le Duan even manages to mention the National Democratic Revolution in a educational manner, thus:

“Like the national-democratic revolution all over the country in the past, the present South Vietnamese revolution has the workers and peasants as its main force and the worker-peasant alliance led by the working class as the cornerstone of the national united front.”

A small archive of Le Duan’s writing can be found on MIA.

Please download and read this text:

Political and Military in Revolutionary War, 1967, Le Duan (864 words)

Further reading:

How to Master Secret Work, 1980, SACP (13929 words)

On the Time for Armed Struggle, 1974, Pomeroy (6800 words)