Johannesburg - It remains to be seen if leaders of the SA Communist Party (SACP) and those of the ANC will quell the visible tensions between the two parties.
This comes as none of the top six ANC leaders attended the annual Joe Slovo commemoration held in Soweto on Monday.
Addressing those who attended the anniversary marking Slovo’s death, SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said his organisation had to play a role in returning the movement to its former glory.
“Yes, rebuilding our movement means paying particular attention to the ANC, but most importantly to our revolutionary movement as a whole, not least attaching great importance to the working class - the main motive force of the national democratic revolution That is the vanguard role of the SACP, that of pointing the way forward. That is what Joe Slovo stood for,” he said.
Nzimande hailed the late leader as a man of practical action, saying his development of theory, strategy and tactics was anchored in practice.
However, some SACP leaders took a swipe at the ANC’s failure to pitch up.
Slovo was a founding commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe, along with Nelson Mandela.
Slovo, who was married to journalist and anti-apartheid activist Ruth First, was also involved in the drafting of all major documents that defined the SACP’s vision, theory and practice of struggle against apartheid, beginning with the Freedom Charter, adopted by the Congress of the People in 1955.
Nzimande also used the platform to lambaste what he termed as “imperialist US aggression and attacks in the Middle East”.
“We are remembering Slovo at a time when the US government is once again embarking on dangerous acts of provocation in the Middle East.
"The SACP strongly condemns the acts of aggression by the US against both Iranian and Iraqi people.
"These attacks amount to a violation of rights to sovereignty and self-determination.
"The flagrant violation of Iraq’s sovereign airspace is one of the many examples which prove that the imperialist regime of the US has never cared about the freedom of the people in any region or country and is prepared to violate international law whenever it wants to.”
He maintained that it was a well-documented fact that US involvement in the Middle East had nothing to do with peace for the people in that region or anything to do with the promotion of international peace and security.