We document a declaration of Egypts revolutionary youth organizations...

SUPPORT WORKERS INTERNATIONAL VANGUARD LEAGUE:

For the past 15 years all the parties in parliament have made false promises to the people, from national to local level. Millions are starving, millions are homeless and millions are unemployed. The monopoly capitalists have never had it so good; their stomachs are always full, they live in mansions and they receive billions of Rands of profits without working. It is election time and these capitalist parties are coming around again to lie to the masses. Workers International Vanguard League believes that parliament is part of the problem; parliament is a tool for making sure that the giant monopolies continue to exploit us. So we believe in exposing parliament.

The first fundamental flaw of the Freedom Charter is that it is based on the assumption that in the current period there can be a purely national development of capitalism. Anglo American, Liberty Life, Sanlam, Rembrandt and Old Mutual control the overwhelming bulk of the SA economy. All these monopolies operating in South Africa are themselves controlled by big capital from the imperialist centres. For example, the biggest operating monopoly, Anglo American was set up in 1921 with major shareholding by the US bank, JP Morgan. This same bank, along with other imperialist banks, have major shareholdings in the SA Reserve bank, in effect controlling it. The development of capitalism in South Africa is thus determined by imperialist finance capital. Of this major feature, the Freedom Charter is silent. This means that the Freedom Charter does not envisage a struggle against the control by imperialism.

The perspectives of Pan Africanism is still being used across Africa as a means to objectively justify the continued enslavement of the masses. On the other hand many honest fighters subscribe in various ways, uncritically, to the ideas of Pan Africanism. The political exposure of it is thus an important task.

Lenin, in his ”Imperialism-The highest stage of capitalism“ describes how in the period around 1900 the world had been divided up among all the major imperialists and that inter-imperialist rivalry for greater profits would open up a new period. This period would be that of the degeneration of capitalism, one of wars, civil wars and revolutions. Out of this period would arise the birth of Socialism. The achievement of Socialism is not automatic but would involve a life and death struggle between the working class and the capitalist class of the world. This period of capitalist decay, Lenin described as the era of imperialism. One of the key characteristics of this period is the dominance of finance capital. Finance capital is the result of the merger of banking capital and industrial capital. Put in simple terms: The banks control major industrial monopolies while at the same time, major industrial monopolies control the banks. The more than 100 years that has passed since the writing of Lenin’s work on imperialism, has confirmed his conclusions.