Hamba Kahle Comrade Denis Goldberg 

We forever stand in solidarity with the working people in your name 

The SACP dips its red banner and salutes Cde Denis Goldberg, Party stalwarts, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) - joint SACP and ANC military wing soldier, ANC leader, and a Communist to the end. Cde Denis Goldberg passed away just before mid-night, 29 April 2020 at the age of 87. The SACP is deeply saddened and expressed its sincere condolences to the Goldberg family, foundation, the working class, comrades and friends, for the great loss encountered.

His message to the SACP and to Communists and freedom loving people the world over when interviewed in February of this year, was a call on us to intensify solidarity with working people, and through that solidarity to defend working people’s rights. 

How extremely appropriate and relevant to our struggles now to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic and to ensure that the most vulnerable in our society are safe from the virus, are able to put food on the table and to have shelter and water as required for human life. Cde Denis Goldberg as an engineer by training has served this country as an advisor in the ministry responsible for water after he returned from exile in 2002 until 2004. It is for us to pick up his fallen spear and ensure that the right to access to clean drinking water is a reality for all South Africans.

Comrade Denis was politicised as a child reading about the rise of fascism in Europe and following the events of the war, and his commitment to internationalism never wavered. He joined the socialist-aligned Modern Youth Society in 1953 while studying civil engineering at the University of Cape Town.

Comrade Denis was recruited into the Communist Party by Cde Braam Fischer and served loyally in the Party throughout his life. He was an active member of the SACP underground activities in the 1950s, and played an active role in SACP pamphlet distribution in Cape Town, using his car roof and south-easter wind as a distribution mechanism for areas where the risks of distributing by hand was too great. That is the creativity of a Communist engineer!

As a member of the SACP he joined other leading members in forming the Congress of Democrats, the home of white congress movement activists in the 1950s, and served on its executive. During the State of Emergency in 1960 Goldberg and his mother were detained for four months.  Consequently he was dismissed from his job, but that was not to deter him from his contribution to our revolution. 

Cde Denis was part of the formation of the MK in 1961 and served as a technical officer. In July 1963 he was arrested at SACP headquarters, Liliesleaf Farm. Described by Cde Nelson Mandela in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, as ‘the youngest of the accused’, Cde Denis was charged in the Rivonia Trial, and sentenced in 1964 to four terms of life imprisonment. Due to racial segregation, he served not with his comrades on Robben Island, but in Pretoria Central Prison.  Cde Denis was a firm proponent of non-racialism, recognising that to live a privileged life while others were oppressed and exploited was living a lie, which he neither wanted to see for himself nor his children

True to the principle that learning is a lifelong activity, he studied in prison and acquired degrees in public administration, history and geography, and in library science. Goldberg had almost finished a law degree when he was released from prison, having served 22 years, in 1985, going into exile to London to join his family.   

In London he resumed his work in the ANC in its London office from 1985 to 1994. He was a spokesperson for the ANC and also represented it at the Anti-Apartheid Committee of the United Nations. He has been recognised internationally for his work against apartheid. 

Cde Denis Goldberg returned to South Africa in 2002 and was appointed Special Adviser to Ronnie Kasrils, then Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, until 2004. In recent years Cde Denis has battled ill-health with the same indomitable spirit that he fought against apartheid and capitalism. He has remained an activist to his last breath, with wonderful plans for community development in his home area of Hout Bay, which in his honour must be sustained and developed. 

A giant has fallen. 

A revolutionary has breathed his last breath. 

As we salute our fallen comrade and express our condolences to his family and to his comrades, let us ensure that the socialist society that he lived and fought for becomes as reality. 

Hamba Kahle Cde Denis Goldberg!

ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY | SACP
EST. 1921 AS THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA | CPSA 

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