MADE BY GENERAL SECRETARY COMRADE NICHOLAS NGQABUTHO MABHENA
at the Bulawayo Press Club on 3rd May 2017.
Members and Friends of the Press, Fellow Zimbabweans, Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades
On 20 June 2015, Communists in Zimbabwe held a seminar in Bulawayo, under the theme, “Is Zimbabwe Ready for the Vanguard of the Working-Class?” The seminar gave birth to the Zimbabwe Communist Group which, working with the Zimbabwe Communist League, set out to establish the vanguard of the working class in Zimbabwe. Following wide consultations, also informed by the absence of the vanguard role player in the Zimbabwean body politic, the Zimbabwe Communist Group and the Zimbabwe Communist League have from 1st May 2017 resolved to dissolve their two separate groupings to adopt a united constitution to now establish the Zimbabwe Communist Party (ZCP), a Marxist-Leninist political organization whose ideology will be that of scientific socialism. Ours is a class movement, a three pronged struggle against imperialism, dictatorship and the parasitic bourgeoisie.
We seek to democratize the Zimbabwean State as we continue the transitional journey to a Socialist State whose economy and means of production are owned and controlled by the collective citizenry, affording each one of us an equal opportunity to realize our worth, potential and excel in our chosen fields of economic and social contributions to the country. Our immediate task is to unite the workers by offering a platform for building a true workers trade union movement. We sadly note the manipulation of the ZCTU for political gain — workers need an independent, revolutionary trade union centre which will advance the struggle of workers as opposed to being diverted by politicians and used as a step ladder for selfish ends.~5~ We seek to unite the workers, the majority of whom have been forced into the informal sector being victims of the great economic and managerial deception of 1980. As revolutionaries we seek to embark on an exercise of genuine nation building since our people have been divided into ethnic enclaves since attaining independence.
The regime has failed to resolve ethnic divisions in our society. Their rule became synonymous with modern day slavery where humans using the Zimbabwean state machine exploited fellow humans in the form of citizens — with opposition playing to the gallery of the capitalist world. The worker and the poor peasant became the ultimate loser in a game of thrones that ensues up to this day.
As the June 2015 International Labour Organization Resolution 204 dictates, the Zimbabwe Communist Party seeks to formalize the informal sector, working closely with the sector players to build capacity and raise class consciousness. We will work with the Zimbabwean workers based in the diaspora, many of whom are exploited by their employers in their different host countries, having become economic migrants and refugees thanks to the anti-people exploitative and inhuman policies of the current capitalist government. We therefore, in seeking to concientize our fellow citizens, and eventually establishing an equal society void of classes, introduce the Party for the working class, the peasants and the poor. Ours is an invitation to the people of Zimbabwe, who for decades have borne the yoke of capitalism and exploitation in its many facets, to come together and revisit the class struggle as we also perpetuate the struggle for freedom from both imperialism and dictatorship. Socialism In Our Life Time! We thank you!