Revolutionary Dialogue

Don’t forget that this year we are running a “Ghost Programme” in parallel with, and for a short period from May coinciding with, the main Communist University programme. Click here to access the entire programme called “The Spectre of Capital, Volume 1”. This title is a reference to the text that is linked below, the second one of our series, which begins: “A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of communism.” These are the famous words that begin the 1848 Communist Manifesto, and we give here the first part of it, called “Bourgeois and Proletarians” as one of the preliminary readings in a section titled “Precursors”, that will help us to prepare for the actual book, “Capital, Volume 1”.

The Young Communist League (YCL) has a different view on the Pikoli matter and on the Selebi matter, as compared to the view that has been expressed here on the CU in past days (e.g. “Selebi The Brave”). Now see the two linked YCL statements below for their views. The terrific Mail & Guardian picture (above right) of President Thabo Mbeki was taken at the press conference where TM announced that National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi would be going on extended leave.

Right or wrong, we have no regrets about holding different views for the moment as compared with the YCL. If you think that the Communist University regards itself as a source of gospel truth, you are mistaken. This is an educational site, where we are not afraid to be wrong sometimes on our way to the truth. We do not regard the top of a fence as a very educational place to be. We prefer to take our chances on one side of the other of any given fence, and to be prepared both to defend a position and to give it up if we must. Let dialogue proceed! Asikhulume!

We do progress. Dialogue illuminates. For example, one headline in yesterday’s Sunday Times is typical of a certain kind of falsification of the nature of the ANC. It says: “Vengeance high on the agenda as confederacy of victims heads ANC”. Yet an examination of the facts about the new National Working Committee (NWC) shows that 42% of the old NWC is carried forward into the new one. See the next linked item, which is a table of NWC membership. This is a high degree of continuity and by no means can it be construed as a purge. On the contrary, when it is seen that the previous committee members were elected in 2003, and therefore will have been in the NWC for ten years (or even 15 or 20 years) by the time the current term is completed, then it will be understood how careful the ANC, the one and only ANC, has been to avoid a drastic rupture with the past, or between comrades in the present.

Zimbabwe’s Movement For Democratic Change (MDC Tsvangirai) has a new media release web site. Click here to go to it and subscribe for these bulletins. See below for an MDC Media Release on the New Zimbabwe Campaign rallies.

The Communist University has also quite recently started a new distribution group. This is the “CU with attachments” group, which you are welcome to join if you wish. Members of this group receive the same mailing but instead of just links, they receive the documents, usually but not always in MS-Word, as attachments to the e-mail.

The next item is an article from a British on-line publication called the Weekly Worker, which comes from the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). We are not sectarian, but we know the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) better. As far as we know, the original CPGB was disbanded in the early 1990s, and all its assets (including its famous King Street, Covent Garden, London premises) sold and dispersed. It appears that this new Internet CPGB is connected to WIVL, the Workers International Vanguard League, in Cape Town. If anyone has (concise) other information about this, please let us have it.

Last but not least is the link to our Coming Events page, linked below.

Click on these links:

Communist Manifesto, Bourgeois and Proletarians, 1848 (4627 words)

Judicial, Parliamentary intervention on Vusi Pikoli matter, YCL (388 words)

Jackie Selebi matter, YCL Media Release (184 words)

ANC NWC elected January 2008, compared to January 2003 (Table)

MDC rolls out New Zimbabwe Campaign rallies, Media Release (744 words)

Battle for the soul of SACP, Peter Manson, Weekly Worker (3223 words)

Coming Events