Date: 10/12/2010
Source: The Presidency
Title: SA: Motlanthe: Address by the Deputy President, at the Third National Congress of the Young Communist League, Mafikeng

Programme Director;
National Secretary of the Young Communist League;
Other Members of the National Leadership;
Provincial, District and Branch Leaders;
Distinguished Representatives of the World Federation of Democratic Youth;
Other International Delegates;
Delegates:
I feel deeply honoured to address the 3rd National Congress of the Young Communist League (YCL) of South Africa.
It is a reality that as a youth formation in the Mass Democratic Movement, the YCL continues to play an active role in the political life of our country.
In fact, taking into consideration its history, it is fair to say that the Young Communist League is not really that young.
The formation of the YCL in South Africa was a result of an international movement aimed at carrying forward the Marxist-Leninist tradition.

Throughout its life, the YCL has produced a number of industrious political leaders, amongst them Ruth First, Duma Nokwe and Ahmed Kathrada.
Therefore, in your present form, one would be forgiven for contending that you are a reincarnation, resuscitated to address the challenges embedded in modern conditions confronting our people.
Comrades,
My basic understanding of the YCL is that it is a nursery for the SACP. Not only are you tasked with recruitment and running the affairs of the YCL, but you are also expected to provide foundational basis for the development of the Marxist-Leninist theory.
It is exactly here that theory is honed down to its finest detail, where cadres are armed with the necessary intellectual apparatus for further political cognition.
It should be borne in mind that the intellectual contributions by communists have been and are still pivotal to the growth and development of the ANC.
As you are aware, the relations between the SACP and the ANC were forged in the trenches of the struggle.
In the course of the evolution of this relationship, the ANC has learnt a great deal from the SACP, including appropriating useful tools of analysis traditionally employed by communists.
In turn, the ANC has been a good student, employing these tools of analysis to forge a way forward in the course of the struggle.
In fact, this was a mutually enriching relationship, which also strengthened the SACP in many important respects.
Of importance in this historical relationship is the depth of cadreship that sustained the SACP and the mutual benefit flowing from our alliance.On this account, comrade Yusuf Dadoo, the national chairperson of the SACP, reminded us that:
“Our strength in the past has been built upon the depth of our Party’s and cadres’ ideological knowledge and understanding. The fierce ideological battles being waged on many fronts must not find our party wanting. It is in this context that we need to assess here today and in our forthcoming deliberations, our weaknesses and strengths, our successes and failure.”
This is a culture whose banner the YCL should proudly hold aloft now and in the future.
I had to re-state this fact to remind all of us of the political basis for the YCL.
It goes without saying that as a youth formation of the SACP, a member of the Tripartite Alliance, the YCL at once embraces and strives for the achievement of a united, non-racial, non-sexist, just and democratic society.
This has been the overriding vision that has embodied the spirit of our alliance over the years, and it continues to breathe oxygen into our alliance.
Importantly, given its ideological orientation, the YCL is ultimately striving for a classless society, where the needs of humanity take precedence over profit motif and self-aggrandisement.
The SACP has openly embraced the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), a vision, translated into a programme, designed to dismantle the old apartheid system and replacing it with a democratic order serving the needs of all South Africans.
In general, it remains true that our NDR expresses the broad objective interests not only of the working class but also of most of the other classes within our non-racial, democratic state.
This includes the middle class and significant strata of the emergent black bourgeoisie and all other social strata, including the peasants.
This reality provides the foundation for a struggle which aims to mobilise to its side all the classes and strata, regardless of colour, as participants in the growth and development of our country.
Programme director,
As students of Marxism-Leninism, the YCL exists on the basis of certain assumptions that we can justifiably take for granted.
These assumptions are rooted in the values attendant to a socialist mind, such as uprightness, moral rectitude, humility, selflessness, and being exemplary, among other things.
I am stating these self-evident matters precisely because as an organisation designed to bring about the demise of the capitalist system, you are faced with higher expectations in this regard.
At the same time, you are operating in an age of globalisation, where capitalist economy is, by and large, almost unchallenged.
The second existential challenge you are faced with is the corresponding crass materialism that has crept into the corners of our soul as a society.
Our society is fraught with showy opulence, acquisitive instincts and moral indifference, if not downright dissolution, all of which disposes us to potential threat of being sucked into this vortex of capitalist crudity.
As young people fighting this system you need to keep your wits about yourselves and ensure that you are inoculated against its infections through sharpening tools of analysis for an ever deeper understanding.
The YCL has the duty to contribute to the current efforts of fighting poverty, unemployment, crime and other residual social ills inherited from our past.
As young people you should preoccupy yourselves with the improvement of our education and health systems so that we can improve our human capital.
To do this, the YCL should fully launch itself into the everyday life of our society.
Comrades,
With political education offering a deeper understanding of the nature of our problems and a practical involvement in our daily struggle for a better life, the YCL will necessarily move on to a qualitatively higher trajectory of existence.
Political education is the pillar on which rests the growth of any self-respecting political organisation.
So important is political education to the development of cadreship that past cadres of both the ANC and the SACP, like Moses Kotane, dedicated a great deal of their attention to it.
For instance, on the value of political education, Kotane submits that:
‘it was at the Lenin School that I learnt how to think politically. They taught me the logical method of argument, political analysis. From that time onwards I was never at a loss when it came to summing up a situation. I knew what to look for and what had to be done from the point of view of the working class’.
It is thus of immeasurable importance that you as the young communists throw yourselves at the task of political education, the better to produce depth of cadreship in the league of comrade Kotane.
Once the young communists are well equipped they will play a more meaningful role in all aspects of political and social life of South Africa.
In turn this will contribute to the unity of our own movement and South Africans in general.
One way of contributing to this goal of unity and progress in society is to disperse cadres among social formations, such as civil society, legislatures and other institutions.
YCL members joining other social organisations as individuals without any concealed motif to take them or their leadership over would help spread the ideas and thus consolidate common consciousness in society.
History also imposes on both the YCL and the ANC Youth League the responsibility to strengthen each other.
In this regard, the 1967 pamphlet of the SACP Central Committee clearly states that:
“our party is the party of the oppressed workers and poor peasants. Our members must always set example of devotion to the people and respect for their interests and traditions.
In our political work and personal conduct we must always seek to win the masses by persuasion and example.”
It is advisable to keep the above prescripts in mind. In particular, Party cadres are expected to provide leadership to society bearing in mind the interests of the workers, the peasants, the unemployed and the poor.
Further to this, we should remember that all political parties, including the SACP, are about state power.
Accordingly, all hitherto existing parties, be they conservative, democratic or socialist, are about state power.
It was no surprise therefore when the SACP decided to avail some of its members and leaders to serve in parliament and other legislative bodies under the leadership of the ANC.
Similarly, shouldn’t the Party structure itself in keeping with its relation to state power, in the same way many communist parties in the world are structured?
I am sure the SACP, and indeed the YCL, can draw from many examples provided by numerous communist parties, such as the Vietnamese and Chinese Communist Parties.
Delegates,
The historical ties that the SACP shares with the ANC should be strengthened, despite occasional differences.
Many an obituary has been written about the death of this alliance.
The provenance of this flawed thesis is mainly from quarters with a shallow historical perspective of the conditions that necessitated the formation of our alliance and the driving vision that continues to cohere it together despite the turbulences created by the reality of governance.
Often such cynical commentariat is bolstered by public spats among us over matters that warrant matured and composed political discussion within the parameters of the alliance.
Admittedly, members of the alliance have at times either spoken past each other or indeed, spoken out of turn and with no due deference in the public sphere.
It was therefore timely that our recent National General Council rose to the challenge by reaffirming the political line on contested matters and concluding on the appropriate protocol of how we relate to each other as partners.
For our purpose suffice it to say our unity was occasioned by a common vision and the shared struggles that we jointly waged for humane values.
Let me also hasten to state my awareness that the re-launch of the YCL after 53 years of inactivity is still work in progress. This year is only the seventh after the League was re-launched.
Clearly, more work is in store for this formation and I remain convinced that with the calibre and depth of cadreship you have you will strengthen the YCL into an energetic and vibrant political force grooming members and future leaders.
I am more than optimistic that beyond growing this youth organisation you will also work for unity of our alliance.
Comrades,
Besides the challenge that you face in relation to the growth of the YCL into a more formidable political force, you also have the duty to strengthen the ANC Youth League and other youth formations through unity of purpose and political maturity.
To be relevant the YCL must participate in and lead efforts to improve the living conditions of all South Africans, especially the youth.
In conclusion, I would like to wish the YCL a successful congress and future prosperity.
I thank you!!!!