By Blade Nzimande, SACP General Secretary
A giant has left us – Cde Walter Sisulu is no more. The South African Communist Party is saddened to hear of the death of Comrade Walter Sisulu (just 13 days before his 91st birthday). The South African Communist Party dips its banner, and expresses its heartfelt condolences to Mama Sisulu, to the Sisulu family, and to our movement, the African National Congress.
In his life and personality, in his easy-going non-racialism, unpretentious humility and passion for justice, Walter Sisulu embodied the core values of the struggle that liberated our country. It was for all these reasons that the 9th National Congress of the SACP held in 1995 unanimously made Comrade Walter Sisulu the first recipient of our Chris Hani Peace Award. This is an award named after our late General Secretary as the highest award that the SACP gives to honour those who have played a sterling role in our liberation struggle to bring peace to our country.
Comrade Walter is synonymous with more than half a century of ANC-led mass struggles. He played an unparalleled role in shaping the ANC. The recent publication of the biography of Walter and Albertina Sisulu (“In Our Lifetime”, by Elinor Sisulu) provides a timely and informative insight into the life and struggle of Walter Sisulu. What is striking about the biography is that it simultaneously captures the history of the ANC through the key decades in which it became a genuine mass movement, and the centrality of Cde Walter Sisulu in that history. It is the story of a rural boy, son of a domestic worker, later an urban worker, nurtured within the ranks of the ANC, and becoming one of the foremost architects of a non-racial, non-sexist and revolutionary organisation.
In 1949, when he assumed the position of ANC Secretary General on a full-time basis (he was the first to serve full-time in this post), there were still strong reservations amongst significant sections of the ANC leadership about working with other racial groups committed to change in our country. As SG he was instrumental in forging a working alliance between the ANC and the Indian Congresses in the early 1950s. He worked hard towards the formation of the Congress of Democrats (an organisation of white activists committed to the national liberation struggle), and the South African Coloured People’s Organisation. These organisations later came together to form what was known as the Congress Alliance. Comrade Walter embarked on this work sometimes at the risk of serious reprimand from some of his colleagues in the national executive committee, who still believed that Africans should work on their own for their liberation. In all of this, his incredible negotiation skills, patience and power of persuasion were critical.
He also distinguished himself as a promoter and defender of the revolutionary alliance between the national liberation movement, the communist party and the trade union movement. Most importantly, he was in the thick of the major struggles in the 1950s that forged the Alliance into a fighting machine. He helped to overcome a deeply anti-communist sentiment found within the ranks of our movement at the time. As a founder member of the ANC Youth League, comrade Walter had shared the same original anti-communist sentiments of the early leadership collective. But, and sooner than some of the others, through concrete struggles and working together with communist giants like Moses Kotane, JB Marks, Yusuf Dadoo and Michael Harmel, he gradually changed his attitude.
Indeed, in his last year, comrade Walter chose to reveal his longstanding association with the communist party to his biographer and daughter-in-law, Elinor. After its banning in 1950, the Party was reconstituted in 1953 in the deep underground. Cde Sisulu was recruited in 1955, and later became a member of the Central Committee.
Comrade Walter, the communist - this is a story that will, at some stage, have to be told in its fullness.
In 1960, he was centrally involved in the launching of the armed struggle. Arrested, finally, at Rivonia, he joined Cde Mandela in making a brave, defiant speech from the dock, fully expecting to be sentenced to death. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and served, mostly on Robben Island, for 25 years. Together with his fellow-inmates, he refused to be broken by the barbarism of the prison regime. With his comrades, he struggled to transform prison into what became known as the “people’s university”, conducting political classes and, later, teaching the younger cadres about the ANC and what it stood for. In honour of these traditions, and of this giant, the SACP pledges to continue conducting political classes as an integral part of our struggle to transform our country and build a better life for all.
Cde Walter Sisulu must surely rank as one of the greatest unifiers in our movement, a patient listener and a caring revolutionary. Some of us had the opportunity to work with him in the midst of the bitterest violence unleashed by the apartheid regime (in collaboration with the IFP) in the killing fields of KwaZulu Natal. The gravity of the situation threw up very sharp tactical differences within the ANC itself in that province in the late 1980s and early 1990s. How much emphasis should be placed on trying to talk peace with the IFP and the police? Or should the emphasis be on building self-defence structures? The two options were not necessarily in contradiction, but there was a great deal of disagreement on how to combine the two, and on the relative weight to be placed on each. Cde Mandela and the national executive committee of the ANC sent Cde Walter on more than one occasion to assist. He patiently listened to all points of view and was a great facilitator in trying to build a common strategic and tactical approach in one of the most difficult moments in the history of our revolution. Some of us were fascinated by his ability to engage a militant like the late Cde Harry Gwala, we were impressed at how the latter would sit and listen to his counsel and views. That was Cde Walter Sisulu at work!
In the midst of all this, Sisulu was a loving husband, father, and grandfather. Our hearts go out to Mama Sisulu, a leader in her own right and a pillar of strength to younger activists, and to the Sisulu family.
A thoroughly democratic South Africa is the best monument that we can build in honour of Comrade Walter. Let us honour him by deepening the struggle for a better life for all, and most critically by tackling, collectively, the twin challenges of jobs and poverty eradication. As the SACP we won’t be found wanting in this regard!