“Uwile umthi omkhulu” – A Great Tree Has Fallen
The Marxist Workers Party expresses its deepest condolence to Peter Taaffe’s ’s family – his partner and comrade-in-arms Linda, daughters Nancy and Katie, grandchildren and great-grandson. In the passing of Peter Taaffe, the Committee for a Workers International working class and the oppressed worldwide have lost one their greatest champions of the modern era: a working class soldier, theoretician, strategist and tactician second to none. He understood that Marxism is, in addition to all else, above all a method and a guide to action. He could apply the teachings of Marxism not just to every manifestation of oppression and exploitation, class, race, women, national oppression and their inter-connection but also to science, philosophy and of course economics. The theory of permanent revolution was critical in our understanding of the nature and tasks of the South African and colonial revolution.
The CWI’s SA section owes Peter deep gratitude for his role in the establishment, development and guidance through its highs and lows, its crises, retreats and advances over four decades. We developed an unshakeable confidence in Marxism as, in Trotsky’s words, a science of perspectives, providing the advantage of foresight over astonishment.
Peter visited us twice at historic moments in the struggle of the working class for national liberation and socialism as well as the development of the section. His first visit, with the late comrade Lynn Walsh, in 1993, was prompted by the need to avert the danger of the liquidation of the section proposed by a group of leading comrades, who were demoralised ideologically by the restoration of capitalism in the former Soviet Union. They have since made their peace with capitalism. It was a year before the historic 1994 elections whose outcome confirmed the perspectives worked out on the section’s establishment in exile in the late 1970s. The ANC won a massive victory as the masses, led by the working class, took a giant step on their march “From Slavery to the Smashing of Apartheid” the title of his 1994 book that we will be reviewing soon.
The second visit, in 2013, this time with comrade Alec Thraves and CWI deployee, Sean Figg, was when we were preparing for the launch of the Workers and Socialist Party (WASP). The Marikana massacre of August 2012 had answered the question posed in the book: “How long will it be before an ANC government sends in police and army units against striking workers…?” As Peter pointed in his book: “A critical mood towards the leadership of the ANC has reflected itself in the debate within COSATU on the need for a “workers’ party”. The most significant aspect of this development is that this idea of a workers’ party developed in South Africa before the coming to power of an ANC dominated government. It is a promissory note for the future as far as the South African working class is concerned.”
The aftermath of the Marikana massacre had confirmed the perspective that the working class would place the need for a workers party, on the agenda. The Democratic Socialist Movement, as we were then known, had acted on that perspective. On 15 December, 2012 the DSM and the mineworkers national independent strike committee agreed to launch WASP on Sharpeville Day 2013.
Peter has earned his place alongside the great teachers and leaders of Marxism. Trotsky saw his role in defending Marxism and Lenin’s name from debasement principally by Stalin, as even more important than his role in the October Revolution itself. It fell to Peter, with the support of his comrades who founded the British section and the CWI to defend Trotskyism from distortion and vulgarisation after World War 2. The CWI is living testament to that work.
Peter may have been a political giant. But he was, besides that, an ordinary human being. In the modern equivalent of the family past time called “Confessions” in Marx’s time, his answer to the question about his maxim, he would, like Marx, have answered:
Nihil humani a me alienum puto – nothing human is alien to me.
His undying loyalty for his beloved, hapless Everton, marked him out as just one of us, feeling all the joys and sorrows of the working class.
Hamba Kahle Qabane – Farewell Comrade!
Sizophakamisa ikrele lakho nomabhiza obomvu, sithathele kwindlela eya kumbuso wolawulo labasebenzi
We shall pick up your sword and red flag and march onwards on the road to socialism.
Marxist Workers Party, Committee for a Workers International South Africa
To bid farewell to comrade Peter, please see zoom link below:
Topic: Peter’s Last Meeting
Time: May 13, 2025 11:30 AM London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81108653367
Meeting ID: 811 0865 3367
