SOCIALISM IS THE FUTURE: COMRADE MZALA’S THOUGHTS ON THE NATIONAL QUESTION

The national question has been among the hotly contested and complex topics within the South African national liberation movement since the formation of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1912. This debate is at the heart of the content of the South African struggle and the nature of the society it has sought to build, post-apartheid. In the 1980s, one of the primary interlocutors in this debate was Mzala Nxumalo, an activist and intellectual of the ANC and South African Communist Party (SACP). He is remembered for his passionate discussions on this topic. In an obituary statement following his untimely death, the SACP described him as someone who was ‘endlessly fascinated and intrigued by the national question, and wrote and lectured extensively on the relationship between the national and class struggle in South Africa’. He regarded ending inequality between the nations as the main aim of the South African revolution, which ‘could only be achieved under socialism’ (SACP, 1991).