Saturday, 23 May 2026: The South African Communist Party (SACP) takes this moment to honour the revolutionary life and enduring contribution of Comrade Joe Slovo on his centennial birth anniversary.

From Joe Slovo’s contribution to the liberation struggle, we draw lessons and courage for the struggles that confront us in the present. Joe Slovo was a communist, a commander of our people’s army, a strategist of struggle, a leader of the SACP and a disciplined servant of the working class.

Born Yossel Mashel Slovo on 23 May 1926, Joe Slovo and his family emigrated from Obeliai, Lithuania, to South Africa in 1934. Joining the Communist Party at the young age of 15, Slovo went on to become one of the most iconic leaders of the South African liberation struggle. He was also a delegate in the 1955 Congress of the People, which adopted the Freedom Charter, making meaningful contributions to it. He also played an important role in organising and uniting the trade union movement from the 1940s.

The apartheid regime detained him for two months in the 1956 Treason Trial, with charges against him dropped in 1958. The regime later detained him for six months during the State of Emergency declared after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960.

Together with Comrade Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo was a founding commander of the joint SACP-ANC liberation army, uMkhonto WeSizwe, in December 1961. Forced out of the country to exile in 1963, Slovo continued his revolutionary work in Britain, Angola, Mozambique and Zambia. He distinguished himself as one of the major theorists and strategists of the liberation struggle, coordinating military activities to sabotage the apartheid regime’s activities.

Although living in exile, the apartheid regime never stopped hunting down Slovo and his family. In 1982, the regime murdered his wife and revolutionary, Comrade Ruth First. She was assassinated in Maputo, Mozambique, where they lived.

In 1987, Slovo was elected as SACP General Secretary, succeeding Comrade Moses Mabhida, who had led the Party from 1978 until his death in 1986, and, in 1985, became the first white person to be elected to the ANC’s National Executive Committee. Returning in May 1990, after 27 years in exile, he was elected as SACP National Chairperson in 1991, a position he held until his death on 6 January 1995. He also served in Mandela’s first cabinet as minister of housing.

For Joe Slovo, socialism was not a distant dream but the logical and necessary next stage of the national democratic revolution. Socialism means democratic control of wealth, equality between men and women, decent work, universal access to health and education, social solidarity and human dignity.

Slovo warned us that political democracy, on its own, would not be sufficient if it left the power of the capitalist class intact. He argued that unless economic power is transformed and the wealth of our country is placed at the service of the people, the legacy of inequality will persist under new political forms. Today, when unemployment, poverty and inequality remain so deep, those warnings ring with urgency.

To guide this process, from 29 to 31 May 2026, the SACP, together with other South African organisations of the left, will converge at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg for a national Conference of the Left, convened under the theme “Building a Left Movement for Working Class and Popular Power”. This conference brings together communities, trade unions, informal traders, youth, women, faith-based activists, progressive professionals and all formations of the working class. It will gather mandates from the ground and adopt a people’s manifesto for municipalities. It will shape our approach to 2026 and to independent participation where communities demand it.

In tribute to Comrade Joe Slovo, we continue the struggle for social emancipation. We recommit ourselves to rebuilding the SACP as a vanguard of the working class; deepening the national democratic revolution; resisting neo-liberal austerity; building people’s power; advancing self-reliant communities; constructing a people’s economy; using the 2026 local elections as a terrain for strengthening working-class power and principled Alliance unity.

Power to the Working Class!

Long live the revolutionary legacy of Comrade Joe Slovo!

Long live the South African Communist Party!

Socialism is the future – build it now!