An Open message Addressing The Fifth Conference of the Communist Party of Sudan

An Open message Addressing


The Fifth Conference of the Communist Party of Sudan



Khartoum
24th January. 2009





Honorable / Chairman and Elbushra Elsaym Mustafa
Members of the Fifth Conference Members of the Communist party of Sudan




Through:

Honorable / Chairman and
Members of the Preparatory Committee


Greetings comrades,




Subject: Request for the inclusion of a message in the agenda of the Conference











We present the following remarks:

1 –In its essence this message attempts to state opinions and facts which the draft of the main report of the Conference has concealed, which were also not expected to be included in the organizational report
2 – As you know, attempts to write and reflect those opinions in a document within the party’s channels were aborted when the leadership refused to receive it. Instead, the leadership suspended the member who submitted the document from engaging in party activities. This prompted some to write in the daily newspapers, but their concerns were not considered on the pretext that they did not write within the party.
3 – Moreover, given this authoritarian tendency, there is no hope that the leadership will uphold the traditions and the experience of the party in dealing with disputes. In the past, when the party was faced with internal conflicts among its members, it would invite their ideas to be voiced in the conference, where it could refute their claims and defeat their ideas in their physical presence.
4 – We restrict the scope of this message and avoid reporting the details pending your necessary actions to restore the rights of membership and respect the party system.
5 – The message assigns a greater priority for the interests of the country and the party than focusing on personal grievances and individual suffering from injustice in order to reveal the truth. This message may reflect the opinions of a current of unregulated membership who include members suspended or expelled from the party.
6 – We hope this message will not be treated as a bloc, division scheme etc. as we are familiar with the latest methods of Stalinism.

We hope for the success of your conference

The Conference will be held in the absence of prominent and historical communist leaders, including the following martyrs:

Abdul Khaliq, who performed his assignments in the preparation of this Fifth Conference by drafting the documents, “on the manifesto” and “in order to improve the leadership”. He later added his remarks on the July 19, 1971 Operation, which were denied by the political secretary of the Central Committee in charge until the fifth conference, in spite of evidence of the existence of the remarks!

Qasim Amin, head of the party before the Fourth Conference and Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the 1970 Conference.

The main victims of the penetration of the Central Committee were Elshafe, Garang and Shakak.

Khidr Nasr, the elected member of the Central Committee at the Fourth Conference and a distinguished example for the victims of Stalinism. His appeal against the decision of his removal from the Central Committee and the decision to end his role as a professional revolutionary devoting his time to the party. is supposed to have been submitted to you for your deliberation. At this juncture, the conference can not be a platform to narrate the tragedies and the grievances of hundreds of party members and leaders.

(1) The communists succeeded in the imposition of internal democracy and also in the holding of this Conference, which has been replaced by right-wing leadership at the top of the pyramid with expanded consensus. This replacement is a demonstration of an improper practice of leadership. Because the leadership position of the conference is in fact the position of thought, even after the convening of the conference became a reality, it also resorted to methods of "workshops" to be an alternative to the conference in discussing issues at the heart of the terms of reference of the Conference. For instance, the issue of the leadership was discussed at a workshop. Nevertheless, the convening of the conference is a positive step on the road to confirm the historical balance of the working class and its party.

(2) It is necessary to address the conference, which we have awaited for more than four decades, with the hope that our adoption of practical issues, most of which pertain to Khartoum province, rather than the endless theoretical issues will not affect the significance of the message.

(3) Despite the draft’s description of Stalinism that prevailed and its implications in the party, the right-wing leadership failed to provide clear critique. For instance, the perpetrators were not held accountable, and effort was not made to rectify the status of the victims. Instead, it still followed the same practices that it previously declared as wrong. This can be seen in the following instances:

(A) Selectivity in restoring a few members who were forcibly expelled from the party. (B) Isolation of the membership and a cadre of students and graduates in order to halt their connection with the party branches
(C) Political blackmailing, transformation of the party into a private ownership and demanding those who are in conflict with them to form their own party.
(D) The negative supervision of the election of leaders at their level conferences and/or the selection of the conference delegates.
(E) The tactical postponement of the conference, including the absence of participation of the representatives of the party branches abroad.
(F) The continuing reports of malicious and open control of the membership and cadre inside and outside the party

(4) A discussion of conference documents at the grass roots level revealed the ideological gap between this level and that of the vast right-wing leadership. This proves that “the main contradiction in the Communist Party is the contradiction between the widespread awareness among the members of the party and the incapability of leadership. This should not be interpreted as personal differences or conflicts. Indeed this confirms the urgent need to apply the Marxism - Leninism concept of leadership to replace the prevailing Stalinism concept.

(5) You are well aware that the appointed Central Committee approved the documents of the conference with dictated consensus. However, when it realized the awareness among the grassroots of the membership, the Central Committee began to play an unregulated tactical retreat, and made its own version of Moderate Marxism, "the Revolutionary Communist wing”. Representing one of the crew of this wing is Taj al-Sir Osman Babu, who did not hesitate for a moment to reproduce the ideological thought of the current of revolutionary communists. This ideological thought was upheld by the grassroots of the party, both inside and outside the home as well as outside the party. Osman’s reproduction of the ideological thought of revolutionary communists is an attempt to hijack the current of genuine moderate Marxism. Indeed, the revolutionary communists resolved its party commitments several years ago and not in the last ten minutes of the game. The revolutionary communists are committed to the ideology, nature and content of the party as approved by the Fourth Conference. They have been patiently revealing the arrangements to resolve the party and turn it into a capitalist-oriented party, under the banner that they are renewing the cooperation with the working class in substitution of the party being for the working class. You will recall that before their temporary retreat, the right wing leaders used to describe all the revolutionary communists who resist the liquidation of the party as rigid, living in the past or as the enemies of the party. During other times, anyone who spoke or wrote about the right-wing’s move to liquidate the party was accused of serving the plot of intelligence schemes or seeking to destroy the party. Ironically, when Taj al-Sir Osman Abu served the intelligence schemes from within the appointed Central Committee, he escaped accusation.

(6) The domestication of the party and the transfer of the political will from the working class by changing the regulations and manifesto without managing the ideological conflict will not only lead to the regression of petty bourgeois, but it will directly result in the automatic liquidation of the Communist Party. It is in the heart of the terms of reference of the conference to discuss the modifications that have taken place in the party regulations and the program since 1996 and to hold accountable those who hide behind the guise of the spirit of the conference, but are in actual fact taking over the conference to reflect their self interests. Those who abuse the force of the organization to impose ideas that are yet to be deliberated upon and approved, scorn the party regulations. These imposed ideas are the basis for party education, and are a prerequisite for new membership. This is dangerous because it is a falsification of the will of communism.

(7) We are aware that in this conference it is impossible to examine with vision and caution all the party’s experiences and issues spanning for more than forty years. We can also not assess events that occurred during this period, and learn from their lessons in order to prevent the same mistakes from being repeated, thereby enabling the party to face the future on solid ground. We need to at least consider the issue of failing to use the rules of the party to administer the conflict in thought which the draft report confirms, but does not propose democratic solutions. These differences remain largely unknown to the party membership because they are confined to the meetings and correspondence among the central secretariat and the secretariat of the Province of Khartoum and its committee.

To get rid of the second side of the ideological conflict, as the draft has shown, a set of organizational procedures and other actions were applied in a biased manner. We call upon the delegates not to pass the draft of this main report in its current status, because it reflects the views of only one side of the conflict. This draft has been decorated by diamonds extracted from the proceedings of the Fourth Conference and other related documents. It is paramount to hold an Exceptional Conference or a series of conferences in order to deeply explore the events that have an impact on shaping the political life of the country. The evaluation of leadership methods and levels of practical performance, the use of weapons of self-criticism and criticism, enforcing accountability and providing appreciation all require the consideration of the following key events:

I. The 1970 Split. It is important to trace the effects of the 1970 split on the party including the leaders who silently advocated the split in ideas, and still continue to be in the party till now. These leaders are currently attending this conference of yours. Some of the members who split from the party later recovered their membership without the party leadership demanding them to criticize their decision to split.

II. The operation of July 1991; the assassination of leaders ; identification of responsibilities; the role of intelligence and the international capitalism in this operation; the statements of the members of the Central Committee elected at the fourth conference that were written on regional and national daily newspapers addressing the responsibility of some party leaders in causing damage to both the party and the whole democratic movement.( It is important to demand an official inquiry commission to investigate the assassination of leaders and to seek the disclosure of the whereabouts of their graves)

III. The party’s withdrawal from the public struggle in the street, a distinguishing practice of the party when it was an elite party with independent activity, free from the robes of tactical alliances. The renunciation of this right resulted in the ambiguity of the party’s tactic. In particular, it led to the ambiguity of the party’s political line, the direction of the masses, the daily political situation and the methods of work.

IV. It is known that the party’s strategy and the tactics directly affect the battles which it engages in, and reveal the different leadership levels as well as expose their shortcomings. The strategy sets the stage of revolution, identifies the party’s enemies and the class forces. This consequently determines the class struggle, which in turn is directly reflected on the party’s ideological conflict. However, the right wing leadership that ruled the party was not interested in immediately assessing the coup of June 30th 1989. It only did so six years after the occurrence of the coup when the role of the communists in advancing the prospects of the democratic action was already being weakened and after the replacement of this role with bargaining deals and agreements. This paved the way for imperialism commanded by USA which led the outside sanction directed against the ruling political authority. The transformation of the party to be an instrument for the enforcement of rightist schemes at the international, regional and local levels, had the outcome of distancing communism from the public life.

V. The leadership’s wrong estimates of the up and down pattern of the movement of the masses. The following are fine examples pertaining to Khartoum province:
a). The leadership behavior of opposing and hindering the activities of the alliance of trade unions of different sectors in their opposition to the Nimeri regime and the imposition of penalties on those comrades who fought and participated in those activities.
b).The anti-uprising position of the Secretariat of the Central Committee during the April 1985 uprising, and the destructive role played by the political secretary, Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud.
c).The opposing position of the leaders in the Secretariat of the Central Committee and the party’s committee in Khartoum province against the strikes and demonstrations inspired by the rise in price of sugar in December 1988.
d). The strange attitude of the leadership towards the June 30th Coup and how the mass flight of party members caused the ideological and organizational chaos as well as the emergence of a party with multiple centers, each center deciding on behalf of the party. The appointment of some leaders to the Central Secretariat and the launching of public debates without reference to the Central Committee are examples. The disappearance and the appointment of collective professional revolutionaries without resolutions, and the transfer of the opposition centers outside the country is another set of examples.

VI. The confusion of the leadership in dealing with the principle of national sovereignty, for instance the position in support of the entry of international forces in Darfur, the need to submit to the so called will of the international community (i.e. the Security Council), and the flimsy justifications for the co-operation with U.S intelligence agencies on the pretext of opposing the regime. The total silence in response to the foreign tutelage and the deduction of Sudanese territories from within its boundaries is another example.
VII. The political alliances and participation in the National Council (among others), on the pretext that that it is the executive authority which appoints the legislative authority (!) and comparing it with the participation in the election of the Central Council in 1963. Moreover, they ignored to comment on the impact of the various armed militias on the future of the political and democratic transformations and on the protection and security of the party.

(8).We are well aware of the difficulties of the task under the current circumstances characterized by the right wing tide in the Arabic, Africa and Islamic countries at the national, regional and international levels. These difficulties undermine our communist formation and may pressure some of us to the full decline, leading to the explicit announcement of the desire to abandon the party ideology. (An example is Alshafe Khidir, before him was the late Adlan and his colleagues, and before them, Dr Farouk Mohamed Ibrahim and his colleagues. The pioneer was the late Awad Abdul Razeg.)

The right wing always erred when it eyed the party’s organizations as a transferable inheritance and a tool to serve their interests which are contrary to the interests of the working class. Aware of the value of the Sudanese Communist party, its great historical exploits and heroic glories, the right wing was mistaken in 1970 when it thought that, backed by the ruling authority and the soviets, it was engaged in a terminal battle with the Revolutionary Communist Movement. At that time, the right wing also ruled the party and the state in the former Soviet Union. The Deliberative Conference of 1970 defeated all of them.

It blundered for the second time when it established a party that was only short lived. Its third error was when it mistook the operation of July 19th 1971 as the end of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Here rose the communists (the remnants and fragment. Alfatih Elrasheed and his good comrades, with the help of democratic forces), achieved the assembly of their party and defeated the rightist tide at the national, regional and international levels. The late Alkhatim Adlan repeated the mistakes made by others by underestimating the party and its revolutionary forces. Now the rightist currents repeat the same mistakes when they implement a calm and patient scheme of party liquidation, and expel those who violate their ideas. In addition, they persistently urge those who are defiant to set up their own party, so that they can inherit the Sudanese Communist Party. This is the renewal!! However, it is certain that, despite everything, this Fifth Conference will defeat the trend of the rightist current, whether it is self revealed, hidden in silence, or falsely wearing the mask of revolutionary communism.

Comrades from the party have been dismissed or expelled from the party without merit- an outright confiscation of their rights according to the party regulations. This occurred albeit the fact that those victims have been at their sites defending their ideological principles in strong faith. The right wing will not succeed in dividing the ranks of the party. It will not dare to change the name of the party, its nature and its ideological content. The right wing should not be allowed to rally around the party ideology.

All of you read the invitation by Alshafe Khidiv, addressed to those who refuse the rightists’ proposed renewal scheme to leave the party and establish their own party. You also read the invitation of Taj-Alsir Othman Babu urging those who objected to the dissolution of the party under the guise of fake Marxist approach, to establish their own party before the convening of the Fifth Conference. Also consider the invitation of Suleiman Hamid to those who would like to form their own party, and you can recall his challenges and words of warning. Before them, we can recall the invitation of the late Alkhatim, calling on those whose vision venerated ancestors to leave the party and to form their own. The Communist party of Sudan has not been registered as a private ownership of some of its staff, and hence, they ought to leave the party and formulate their own version of party, with the support of the political ruling authority and international capitalism.

(9) The Fifth conference must find solutions to issues related to the cadre devoting their time to the party. Under the prevailing domination of Stalinism characterized by replacing free and democratic election by the mechanism of appointment, the absence of criticism and self criticism, as well as the practical abolition of the principle of collective leadership, it is obvious that the endorsement of the draft report will confirm that the choice of the cadre will be a continuation of the past record of mistakes that ought to be rectified.
It is important to consider the following:

A) The evaluation of the experience of the cadre and establishing new regulations for the cadre system.
B) The dissolution of the current system of cadre.
C) The promotion of the cadre devoting their time to the party should begin at the branch level. This promotion should correspond to the targeted standard of performance and the competence of the promoted colleague.
D) The branch has to sponsor the chosen colleague devoting his/her time to the party in order to at least ensure that the duties delivered are subject to review and follow up and that the cadre remains committed to the assignment of communism.

Albdekhaliq wrote:
(The problem of the cadre who devote their time to the party, and the cadre who can develop the work, can be resolved in the light of a new policy aiming at creating a new cadre between the party organizations. This policy should train and assist the cadre to carry out leadership acts aimed at developing a system that could promote it in their branches by training them in practical revolutionary activity. The cadre’s problems can only be solved in the central committee and its various offices if they rise to a higher level of capacity in organizational leadership in which the selection of the cadre occupies a considerable space of the activity). The cadre need not be considered as a financial burden since some of them may be assigned to devote their time to create additional financial resources for the party.

(10) The issue of protecting and securing the party is of interest to the entire membership who are entitled to contribute to its development. According to the practical experience of the past, the leadership used to consider this issue as sacred secrets. Sometimes this issue is in the hands of one individual, and at other times, within the control of a few individuals on the top of the party pyramid. We find that the offices of security and information direct the bulk of its activity against the membership of the party. This membership is under close control of these offices which produces secret reports. These offices were designed to protect the right wing leadership of the party so that it can continue maintaining the party authority, the hellish machine which is the voice of doom when anyone tries to penetrate it. The current leadership repeated the experience of the ill reputed central office of control which did not even spare the martyr Abdelkhaliq and the party’s prominent leader Gassim Amin. Once again, the leadership restored the information and control offices to be above the party and its organizations and these offices are out of control and accountability. The leadership believes that its personnel are above reproach. Under the absolute centralism, the exploitation of this office represents the worst form of exploitation: the fabrication of facts, the malicious consolidation of reports, and the accusation of espionage or working with the intelligence and the police.

The outcome of the misconceptions about the whole case opens the doors for infiltration and the painful punches directed against the membership of the party and its cadre throughout the period of underground activity where comrade relations are disrupted. Until now, the objective of the control office is that half of the party membership chases the other half.

(11) Because of the misconception about protection and security, the deliberate disregard of the impact of the offices of control and infiltration and the Stalinism which dominated and still prevails, the membership and the cadre, their family members and their extended families were faced by atrocities. It is the duty of the Fifth conference, evaluate the control offices, fake leaderships and Stanlist leaderships, as well as to undertake the rehabilitation of the victims of denunciation and intrusions for those who paid the price:

- Loss of their dear lives, now their spirits are flying over the heads of the delegates.
- Dismissal from the job, ending their assignments as professional revolutionaries while they are in prison or being chased by the security of the ruling authority
- Removal of members from their party using the Stanlist technique of dissolving the branch then reforming the branch so that members find him or herself excluded from the party
- Expulsion from the party membership without applying the party regulations
- Coercion to leave the party
- Assassination of character with tight enforcement of political and social isolation

The formation of a committee composed of the conference delegates and victims must be considered to investigate on fact finding, assist the rehabilitation of live and dead leaders, and to reveal the truth of the above claims, or disprove the allegation that we are merely enemies to the party who have not proven their claims

We are confident that your conference will be a success. It will defeat any attempt to circumvent communism as a flag. All agree that Marxism is not a book descendant from heaven and that the leadership of the communist party is not a group of prophets whose sole error in a period of forty years was only the delay of this conference.

We agree that, since its establishment, the party has chosen the convenience of the Marxist theory in accordance with primitive reality, the economic community of multi-ethnic and tribal cultures, religions and the expression of innovation in terms of development will continue in terms of issues that emerged after the Fourth Conference.
We agree that there is no revolutionary party without a revolutionary theory, and vice versa. Party unity will survive with struggle of ideas and we are confident that your conference will be an extension of the Deliberative 1970 and will win moderate Marxism, the communist revolutionary movement led by Abdul Khaliq and your conference will confirm the following statement written by the Marxist leader of moderation:

(True, the Communist Party is a political union and is voluntary in accordance with its program and regulations. But it is also true that its theory is Marxism - Leninism which is an integral part of all. The unity of our party in the revolutionary activity guided by its program and regulations. However, the composition of the membership of our party must be a communist formation.)



Glory to the Sudanese people, the maker of their history and
their National Democratic forces.
Glory to the martyrs of the nation and the party.
Victory of the working class and all workers
Long live the struggle of the Sudanese communists
The full success of your conference