Deja Vu All Over Again

The image here has been used before on the Communist University Blog. The caption says: “Kafka: Morphing for the Masses”. It refers to one of Franz Kafka’s most famous stories, in which a man turns into a large beetle. Gradually his friends and family, at first sympathetic, begin to shun him and then to despise him. The beetle is brave, and does not lose his self-respect. He knows who he is.

What can one say about the first linked item? The Communist University has not turned into a beetle or any other kind of gogga or dudu. It is what it always was. The once comradely comrades who produced this document have however moved steadily towards the condition of the terrifying bureaucrats in another of Kafka’s stories, “The Trial”.

The best one can say about it is that there are charges, even if there is no evidence. If the last episode (branch meeting) in this sorry decline is anything to go by, the “evidence” led on 2 June in the 13th-floor security-guards’ office in Kerk Street, Johannesburg will consist of a series of disconnected rants.

The first time was tragedy. The second time will be farce.

The matter would make a more complete study if the document that has been transgressed (if that is the case) had ever been seen by the CU. The absence of that document (“branch resolution’) is also very “Kafka”. What is to be done? All advice will be carefully considered. Reply to your e-mail or go to the blog at http://domza.blogspot.com/ and use the “Comment” facility. At least do read the document, even if you do nothing else.

All this shadow-play has nothing to do with reality. It is not “reality-based”. The imaginary crimes that have led to the same individual being called both “Comrade” and “Accused” in the same document, are only evidence of the displaced frustrations of a group of people who have designs relating to the 12th SACP National Congress, which will take place from 11-15 July this year. We have previously described them as “entryists”, but “turncoats” would be as good a label. By the way, “labeling” is one of the greatest crimes that it is possible to commit, according to these same entryist-turncoats.

Meanwhile, the real business of the SACP continues. See the latest “Umsebenzi Online”, linked below.

Thanks to the comrade in England who forwarded the Guardian article by Seumas Milne. It is a review of a book in the current unrestrained anti-communist genre by an Oxford academic called Robert Service. Milne does a good job. See the link below.

The next, defiant, session of the CU will be next Tuesday, 22 May at 17h00, in the SACP boardroom, 3rd floor, COSATU House, 1 Leyds Street, Braamfontein. The text we will use as a basis for our dialogue is and excerpt from “The Civil War in France” (see the link below).

Support the CU! Come to class!

Click on these links:

NOTICE TO ATTEND A DISCIPLINARY ENQUIRY (indescribable)

Umsebenzi Online Volume 6, No. 9, 16 May 2007 (1747 words)

Movement of the people, Seumas Milne, The Guardian (1170 words)

The Civil War in France, Karl Marx, 1871 (6391 words)