Weizmann Hamiliton of the Marxist Workers Party, the CWI’s South African affiliate, attacks President Ramaphosa’s pro-capitalist policies on the SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) 7 June 2026 programme ‘It’s Topical’ on the topic ‘Public response […]
…and what can be done to end the problem and rebuild pan-African working people solidarity? On 30 May 2026, the Democratic Socialist Movement (CWI Nigeria) and the Marxist Workers Party (CWI South Africa) organised an […]
For a National Day of Action against xenophobia! Saftu must set a date for the reconvening of the Working Class Summit The xenophobia sweeping across the front pages of the media in South Africa and […]
Trade unionist and soldier of the working class with a lifelong commitment to socialism We express our deepest condolences to his wife, Suzanne, his former wife Trish, his children, his family as a whole, including […]
From Socialism Today, magazine of the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales). Seventy years ago on 26 June 1955 around three thousand people assembled in a field in Kliptown, just outside Johannesburg. They were gathered to […]
In November, a crisis at the Stilfontein mine in the North West province of South Africa, 145 km from Johannesburg, began making international headlines. Up to 4,000 ‘zama zama’ mineworkers had been purposefully trapped underground by […]
What way forward for the working class? There has been a wailing and gnashing of teeth of biblical proportions on both the left and right of the ideological and political spectrum over what the newly […]
In a shattering rejection, the ANC, elected in an atmosphere of heady euphoria with an overwhelming 62.7% majority in 1994 to mark the end of white minority rule and apartheid in South Africa, has been […]
The 2024 elections, more than any other in the democratic era, have highlighted, on the electoral plane, the sharp polarisation between the classes. The elections will be completely dominated by parties that, whatever their political […]
Interview with Weizmann Hamilton On January 11 and 12, 2024, the United Nation’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard the South African government’s case accusing Israel of carrying out “genocidal acts” in Gaza. On 26 […]
The inferno at the end of August that claimed the lives of 77 people, the majority burnt beyond recognition, is one of the worst indictments not just against the City of Johannesburg (CoJ), but the […]
A general election is due in South Africa in 2024. It will be the seventh since the hated apartheid system of racial oppression and segregation was dismantled. Across South African society it is viewed as […]
One of Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci’s most quoted phrases is his 1930 statement in the ‘Prison Notebooks’: ‘The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; […]
The amendments to the Employment Equity Act (EAA) signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa and due to take effect on 1st September 2023, has given rise to a new flare up of racial tensions. […]
The African National Congress December conference re-elected Cyril Ramaphosa as party leader for a second five-year term. He will therefore almost certainly lead the ANC into national elections in 2024. Although Ramaphosa remains ‘the most […]
On 10 November the first national strike against the ANC-government’s assault on public sector pay took place. The Public Service Association (PSA), representing 230,000 of South Africa’s 1.2 million public sector workers, downed tools for […]
STRIKE AGAIN IN SEPTEMBER! NAME THE DATE NOW! RECONVENE THE WORKING CLASS SUMMIT BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR – SET A LAUNCH DATE FOR THE WORKERS PARTY The South African Federation of Trade Unions […]
There can be no tribute more fitting to the martyrs of Marikana than the South African Federation of Trade Unions’ planned National Shut Down on 24 August 2022 which is attracting support across the workers’ movement. A […]
The note of optimism and determination of the declaration issued at the end of the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) Second Congress in May will be greeted with a sense both of relief […]
The temperature of the class struggle is rising. 2022 has already seen a whole number of strikes in mining, metal, manufacturing, on farms, and in the public sector. Some have been brief skirmishes as workers […]
The majority of people have reacted with horror at the violent death of Elvis Nyathi, stoned and burned to death by a murderous mob in Diepsloot, South Africa. According to his wife, the mob had […]
The attempted suspension of the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) secretary-general, Zwelinzima Vavi, by National Office Bearers (NOBs) who are members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) sponsored Socialist […]
South Africa’s 2021 local government elections (LGE21) outcome marks the end of an era. For the first time since 1994, the African National Congress (ANC), the “party of liberation”, has crashed below 50%. The working […]
The Marxist Workers Party (CWI South Africa) stands in solidarity with the steel and engineering workers who began national strike action on 5 October. This action on pay is being led by Numsa, the dominant […]
Mining profits are booming. June saw the biggest trade surplus on record. The banks are paying dividends to shareholders again and StatsSA reports that the economy is 11% larger than thought. But unemployment has reached […]
On 21 July Marxist Workers Party members visited Zone 3 of Katlehong, Gauteng. We had learned through the media of the brilliant work of residents to defend their community from rioting and looting, in particular, […]
Since the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma, South Africa has witnessed the most widespread unrest in decades. Tens of thousands of the poor, the destitute, and the hungry have raided supermarkets and shopping malls […]
On 29 June the South African Constitutional Court found former-president Jacob Zuma guilty of contempt of court. He has been sentenced to fifteen months in prison without the possibility of appeal. Less than 48-hours later, […]
On 12th and 13th June 2021, the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) will reconvene the Working Class Summit (WCS). The WCS was first convened in 2018, in line with a resolution adopted at […]
Student protests have dominated headlines over the past two weeks in South Africa. The brutal and senseless killing of Mthokozisi Ntumba by police as he exited a clinic, unwittingly stepping into a confrontation between protesting […]
The ANC presidency of Jacob Zuma (2009-2018) saw already widespread corruption reach unprecedented new heights in South Africa. The media coined the term “state capture” to describe Zuma’s growing brazenness in appointing ministers and other […]
On top of last year’s PPE-corruption scandal, the African National Congress (ANC) government has made a complete fiasco of vaccine procurement and roll-out. In general, South African capitalism is proving itself incapable of dealing with […]
The 7 October general strike called by Cosatu (Congress of South African Trade Unions) came against the background of an all-out assault on the working class by the ANC (African National Congress) government and the […]
On the 12th of October, workers on the ANC government’s slave-labour Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) continued their struggle for permanent jobs and a living wage. Hundreds of EPWP workers took part in a day […]
The Marxist Workers Party (CWI South Africa) published an Open Letter to the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) in three parts on 18 August, 22 August and 24 August, ahead of Saftu’s upcoming […]
Symbolic protests by left activists took place on 1 August in South Africa because of a growing feeling that something must be done. The country has been in lockdown for over four months but we […]
On 17 June workers marched in Johannesburg, South Africa, demanding permanent jobs and a living wage of R12,500 ($700). Over 200 braved the severe winter cold snap gripping the country and the continuing lockdown restricting […]
The cost of the Covid-19 industry-wide shutdown is being passed to workers in unpaid wages, compulsory leave, and retrenchments. Comair has followed SAA and SA Express into business rescue. Cabin crew and pilots are under […]
Two mile queues for food parcels. Corruption and patronage in their distribution. Shops being looted. Schools vandalised and burned. Collapsing household income. Confusion over accessing social grants. Tens-of-thousands of arrests and fines. Harassment, beatings, and […]
There is growing concern over police and military brutality in the enforcement of South Africa’s twenty-one-day lockdown regulations. Videos have circulated on social media of soldiers beating up and kicking residents in informal settlements, forcing […]
The 26 March countrywide lockdown South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, announced in an emergency attempt to contain the spread of the coronavirus, has been hailed as the decisive intervention the pandemic required. Worldwide the number […]
The Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) is the South African ANC government’s slave-labour scheme. Workers are paid as little as R2,000 per month, for full-time work. The minimum wage in South Africa is R3,500. […]
The outcome of the South African Airways (SAA) strike is a victory. The Cabin Crew Association of South Africa and National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA) deserve the applause of all aviation […]
South Africa is going through its most serious economic crisis of the democratic era. What this crisis shows, probably more than any other before it, is that there is no solution on a capitalist basis. […]
Over the past month, capitalism has once again bared its barbaric underbelly in South Africa in a wave of xenophobic violence. Thirteen have died, so far. Struggling small businesses, foreign national and South African alike, […]
The rape and murder of Cape Town student Uyinene Mrwetyana was the final spark that lit a new wave of protests demanding an end to violence against women. She was killed by a Post Office […]
The 2019 general elections will be seen, in time, as the most important one since the advent of democracy. For the first time since 1994, on 8 May this year, less than half the voting […]
The Workers and Socialist Party (WASP), the South African section of the CWI, held a National Committee meeting, in Johannesburg, at the beginning of September. Delegates discussed the working class responses to the attacks of […]
• Support Saftu’s action on 25 April • Unite the working class in a campaign of rolling-mass actions • Capitalist parties will give us laws for the bosses – workers’ need their own party […]
With the passing of Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela, the African National Congress lost arguably the most beloved and certainly one of the greatest of the leaders of her generation.
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