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The South African Communist Party has learnt with great sadness of the passing away of our liberation struggle stalwart Comrade Andrew Mokete Mlangeni. SACP General Secretary Dr Blade Nzimande conveys on behalf of the Party our message of sincere condolences to the Mlangeni family and our liberation Alliance for the great loss encountered. 

The recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize, Cde Andrew Mlangeni, passed away last night. The great loss marks an end of an era, as he was the last surviving Rivonia Trialist. This was a generation that was ahead of its time, placing non-racialism as one of the central values and goals of our liberation struggle at the height of colonial repression and in the hands of the racist apartheid regime. 

Much as the SACP was the trailblazer, Cde Andrew Mlangeni’s generation of leaders of our struggle for liberation and social emancipation stood firm on advancing non-racialism, teaching us that you do not fight evil with evil, but you fight evil by pursuing a revolutionary moral high ground which can only be based on a superior vision. Cde Andrew Mlangeni’s passing away is a monumental loss to the Mlangeni family and the South African and world working-class movement. 

Mlangeni was fiercely opposed to corruption and corporate capture of the state. In memory of the gallant fighter of our struggle, the SACP will deepen its efforts to build patriotic and popular left fronts to combat corruption in defence of our democracy, and in pursuit of the national imperative of structural transformation and inclusive development towards prosperity for all, especially the working-class and poor.  

The generation of Cde Andrew Mlangeni achieved their generational mission of building the ANC and the Alliance as a revolutionary movement that succeeded to dislodge the once seemingly indestructible apartheid regime from power and laid the foundation for a democratic and egalitarian South Africa. But they also knew that was not the end of the struggle, but the beginning of a new era of struggle. Ours now is to pursue this struggle to complete the national democratic revolution and build an indispensable basis for a transition to a socialist society. 

Issued by The South African Communist Party