Revisiting a Cde Moss vision

The name of Moses Mayekiso — Comrade Moss — has surfaced once again in the turmoil surrounding the decisions made by the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) to “go back to basics”. What does this mean? In 1985, Comrade Moss spelled out one vision that is now being revisited (it is published below). The dramatic story of Comrade Moss is recounted in Comade Moss — a political journey, a 113-page paperback available from belnews@telkomsa.net for R50 (p&p paid).

Here is one of the comments being revisited:

“We need a workers’ charter that will say clearly who will control the farms, presently owned by the capitalists, who will control the factories, the mines and so on. There must be a change of the whole society.

“Through the shop steward’s councils, people are opposed to this idea that there will be two stages towards liberation; that we must clean up capitalism first, then socialism. It’s a waste of time, a waste of energy and a waste of people’s blood.

“Apartheid is just an appendage, a branch of the whole thing — the tree of oppression of capitalism. Then, if you chop the branch, the tree will still grow. You have to chop the stem, straight, once and for all. South Africa’s economy is at an advanced stage, where the workers can take over and direct the whole thing.”