A tribute to the 'Lenin' of Zola, Percy Mthimkhulu

Just before dawn on April 3, we received the shocking news that our beloved brother, colleague, friend and comrade Percy S'busiso Mthimkhulu, fondly known as “Lenin”, had died peacefully in his sleep. 

Born almost 50 years ago, during 1973's Durban Strikes, a time that shook apartheid Pretoria and reignited radical political activism in the country due to the banning of liberation movements and the incarceration of political leaders. This period brought with it key political moments, such as the 1976 student uprisings, the 1987 state of emergency and the 1988 Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, thus capitulating our seizure of power in 1994 to a negotiated political settlement.

These events shaped Mthimkhulu's political and ideological thinking while growing up in the “Mecca of South Africa's Liberation Struggle”, Soweto. It was not by coincidence that he led the South African Students' Congress (Sasco) during the painful early '90s, when enemies of democracy and progress unleashed violence against our people in townships countrywide. Student leaders were not spared bullets, with many dying.

Mthimkhulu was the epitome of the Marxist adage “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness”. Young, brave and wet behind the ears, his social being, from the dusty streets of Soweto, would see him rise above his peers to serve our country and her people.

After a colourful stint in a newsroom, he served with diligence and loyalty premier Popo Molefe, deputy president Paul Mashatile, MEC Lebogang Maile, premier David Makhura and, most recently, finance minister Enoch Godongwana.

Mthimkhulu was the epitome of the progressive values of the ANC-SACP alliance — honest, humble, upright, ethical, incorruptible and principled. In trying to come to terms with his death, let us borrow a passage from Karl Marx's seminal work, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.”

Equally, comrade Mthimkhulu was on the right side of history, not “under self-selected circumstances”, but “under circumstances” permeated by Colonialism of a Special Type (CST) and apartheid rule. These circumstances infused in him revolutionary consciousness and the will to fight for a free and democratic South Africa, a vision deeply embedded in the Freedom Charter.

Nicknamed Lenin, Mthimkhulu earned the name because he possessed a brilliant analytical mind, enabling him to interpret complex problems and resolve difficult questions in the theatre of ideas at any given moment, guided by the scientific tools espoused by the Russian revolutionary, Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Georgi Dimitrov and decorated South African ideologues Govan Mbeki, Harry Gwala, Joe Slovo and Mzala Nxumalo.

Nature blessed him with a great persona — he was always full of love. In his presence, the atmosphere would be filled with laughter and a “festival of ideas” regarding the state of the nation, accompanied by new realities.

As we lay him to rest, it would be fitting to tell the truth — Mthimkhulu was a man of truth and integrity, as expected from any self-respecting and honest cadre of our movement — and state unashamedly that the national democratic revolution is off the rails. This was evidenced by the electoral setback we suffered in the 2021 local government elections, with electoral support among our historical base — the urban middle class and organised section of the working class — continuing to decline.

In honour of this noble son and vociferous writer from the City of Gold's wretched township of Zola, let's restore confidence and trust in the ANC. The party is the only political instrument and weapon in the hands of our people that can build a South Africa that truly belongs to all.

As President Oliver Tambo put it almost 47 years ago during the congress of our sister-party in Angola, the MPLA: “We of the African National Congress visualise a South Africa in which the people shall govern, in which the wealth of the country shall be restored to the people and where the land shall be shared among those who work it. We aim to establish in our country a society free of the exploitation of man by man.”

As Chilean poet laureate Pablo Neruda opined: “Death lies in our beds: in the lazy mattresses, the black blankets, lives a full stretch and then suddenly blows, blows sound unknown filling out the sheets and there are beds sailing into a harbour where death is waiting, dressed as an admiral..”

Go well Bhungane, you ran a good race. Ours is to finish the task. Aluta continua.

* Castro Ngobese is a spokesperson for Gauteng's MEC for human settlements, infrastructure development and property management.