Pall-bearers carry the coffin of Moses Kotane, 14 March 2015, in Pella in the North West Province. Picture :Alaister Russell
“There are armchair revolutionaries who only know how to speak day and night and produce nothing,”Zuma told mourners at the at special official service of the remains of struggle stalwart Moses Kotane in Pella Matlhako village outside Rustenburg, North West.
“There are so many of them these armchair revolutionaries. “Everyday they spend their energy and everything criticising. Moses Kotane was not an armchair revolutionary. He approached things based on the Marxism and Leninism theory.”
Zuma said leaders like Kotane were not confrontational. “They were very strategic,” Zuma said. “They did not go for the man they went for the ball.”
He said the country was bidding a final farewell to one of the finest organic intellectuals ever produced. “This was also a man who never saw the theory of Marxism as a dogma and he certainly did not approach it religiously,” Zuma said.
“On the contrary, he saw it as the most effective tool with which to analyse society and as a guide to action.” The president told the mourners that Kotane wanted to change South Africa.
“One of his remarkable contributions to the theory of our liberation struggle and the history of our country was his passion for the Africanisation of Marxism-Leninism,” Zuma said.
“Another unique characteristic of Moses Kotane was that he was part of that rare breed of leaders who understood the dialectical intersection of the class and national struggles.”
Zuma said South Africa was a much better place to live in than it was when Kotane left to go and pursue the struggle beyond the borders of the country.
Kotane’s family friend Wesi Seokoe said Kotane was not easily approachable but he was kind and disciplined. The reburial service was attended by deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, former deputy president Kgalema
Motlanthe and former National Assembly Speaker Max Sisulu, among others. The remains of Kotane and another struggle stalwart JB Marks were repatriated to South Africa from Russia two weeks ago.
Kotane was one of the first to be banned under the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950. But he ignored his banning order to speak in support of the defiance campaign in June 1952.
Kotane, the former SA Communist Party (SACP) general secretary and ANC treasurer general died of stroke in 1978. Marks, who is also the former SACP general secretary and ANC’s treasurer general, died in 1972 of a heart attack.
Both were buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Marks will be reburied Tshing township in Ventersdorp in North West next weekend.
Zuma has granted them both special official funerals.
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