YOUNG COMMUNIST LEAGUE OF SOUTH AFRICA (UFASIMBA)
7th National Congress Discussion Document
INTERNATIONAL BALANCE
OF FORCES
Imperialism, Multipolarity, and the Anti-Imperialist Tasks of Communist Youth
Prepared for delegates of the YCLSA 7th National Congress
10-12 July 2026
Theme: “Youth to the Front: Rescue the NDR. Advance Towards People’s Power!”
Ref: YCLSA/PR/7NC/DISC-004
Policy & Research Committee | Office of the 2nd Deputy National Secretary (International)
Draft v1.0 | 7 July 2026 | INTERNAL - FOR DISCUSSION
YOUNG COMMUNIST LEAGUE OF SOUTH AFRICA Office of the National Secretary | COSATU House, 110 Jorissen Street (4th Floor), Braamfontein, Johannesburg Tel: 011 339 3621 | yclsaheadquarters@gmail.com | www.yclsa.org.za
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Glossary of Terms and Acronyms 3
Abstract 4
Key Proposals at a Glance 5
1. Introduction 6
2. The Crisis of Global Capitalism and Imperialism 7
3. The Current Balance of Forces 9
4. Wars, Conflict and Imperialist Aggression 11
5. The Rise of Fascism and Right-Wing Populism 13
6. Debt, Trade and Climate Injustice 14
7. Theoretical Foundations: Proletarian Internationalism 15
8. Priority Solidarity Campaigns 17
9. The World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) 19
10. The Progressive Youth International Front 20
11. The YCLSA’s Internationalist Tasks 21
12. Programme of Action 22
13. Risk Analysis 24
14. Draft Resolutions to Congress 25
15. Alignment to the Congress Theme 26
16. Monitoring and Evaluation 27
17. Conclusion 28
Annexure A - Key International Dates and Campaigns 29
Annexure B - Constitutional and Theoretical Extracts 30
References 31
GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND ACRONYMS
This glossary assists all delegates to engage fully with the discussion.
AFRICOM: United States Africa Command — the US military command for Africa; an instrument of imperialist military presence.
Anti-imperialism: Opposition to imperialism — the struggle against the domination of weaker nations and peoples by powerful capitalist states and corporations.
BRICS+: An expanded bloc of major emerging economies advancing multipolarity and alternatives to Western-dominated institutions.
Comintern: The Communist International (Third International, 1919-1943) — the worldwide alliance of communist parties.
Genocide: The deliberate, systematic destruction of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
Hegemony: (Gramsci) Dominance maintained through shaping common sense and culture, not coercion alone.
Imperialism: (Lenin) The highest stage of capitalism; the system of domination by which powerful capitalist states and multinational corporations subordinate weaker ones.
Multipolarity: A world order in which power is distributed among multiple centres, contesting unipolar (single-superpower) domination.
NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation — the Western military alliance.
Proletarian internationalism: The principle that the working class of all countries shares a common interest and must unite across national borders.
Regime change: The imperialist practice of overthrowing governments that resist domination.
Sanctions: Economic coercive measures used by imperialist powers to punish or destabilise states that resist them.
SARS: The South African Road to Socialism — the SACP’s programme.
Unipolar: A world order dominated by a single superpower (the post-1991 US moment).
WFDY: World Federation of Democratic Youth — the international federation of progressive and communist youth organisations.
Zionism: The nationalist movement that established and sustains the state of Israel through the dispossession and occupation of Palestine.
ABSTRACT
This discussion paper presents the YCLSA’s assessment of the international balance of forces and the geopolitical developments that shape the conditions of South African youth. It is prepared for the delegates of the 7th National Congress, convening from 10 to 12 July 2026 under the theme “Youth to the Front: Rescue the NDR. Advance Towards People’s Power!”
The paper argues that the youth question in South Africa is inseparable from the wider structures of global capitalism, imperialism, war, debt and anti-worker restructuring. The local labour market, public finances, industrial strategy, energy transition and development path are all shaped by the wider global order. To understand the youth crisis — unemployment at 45.8%, the NEET rate at 45.6% — we must understand imperialism.
Drawing on Lenin’s theory of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism, Marx and Engels’ call for proletarian internationalism, and Gramsci’s analysis of hegemony, the paper assesses the current balance of forces: the crisis-ridden imperialist system, the multipolar transition (BRICS+), the wars in Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan and elsewhere, the rise of fascism and right-wing populism, the debt and climate crises, and the forces of resistance — from Cuba and Venezuela to Palestine and Western Sahara. It sets out the YCLSA’s priority solidarity campaigns, its engagement with the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), and its proposal to build a Progressive Youth International Front. The paper concludes with a Programme of Action, draft resolutions, a risk analysis and a monitoring framework.
KEY PROPOSALS AT A GLANCE
For delegates who wish to move quickly to the action points:
1. INTRODUCTION
No communist youth formation can understand its own conditions in isolation from the world. The Young Communist League of South Africa (YCLSA) exists within a global system of imperialism — a system that shapes the labour market, the cost of living, the wars, the debt, the climate, and the very futures of the young people we organise. To rescue the National Democratic Revolution and advance towards people’s power, we must understand the international balance of forces.
This document presents the YCLSA’s assessment of that balance of forces and the geopolitical developments that shape the present conjuncture. It is intended to assist Congress delegates in debating the international dimension of the League’s work, identifying the strategic tasks, and adopting a programme of international solidarity and anti-imperialist action for the new term.
The document draws on the YCLSA Constitution, which mandates the 2nd Deputy National Secretary to focus on campaigns and international work; on the SACP’s South African Road to Socialism programme; on the classical Marxist-Leninist theory of imperialism and internationalism; and on the strategic tasks list adopted by the National Secretariat. It is grounded in the understanding that proletarian internationalism is not a sentimental attachment to distant causes but a material necessity: the struggle of the working-class youth of South Africa is part of a single, global struggle against imperialism.
2. THE CRISIS OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM AND IMPERIALISM
The starting point of any honest assessment of the international situation is the recognition that global capitalism is in deep crisis. This is not a cyclical downturn or a temporary dislocation. It is a systemic crisis — a crisis of the imperialist system itself, rooted in the fundamental contradictions that Marx identified: the contradiction between socialised production and private appropriation, and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.
2.1. Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism
To understand the contemporary world, we must return to Lenin’s decisive theoretical contribution: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916). Lenin showed that imperialism is not a policy chosen by this or that government, but a necessary stage in the development of capitalism — the stage at which free competition gives way to monopoly, at which industrial capital fuses with banking capital to form finance capital, at which the export of capital (not merely goods) becomes decisive, and at which the territorial division of the world among the great powers is completed and re-contested.
“Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe has been completed.” - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916)
Lenin’s analysis remains the indispensable framework for understanding the contemporary world. The multinational corporations that dominate our economy, the financial institutions that impose structural adjustment, the military alliances (NATO, AFRICOM) that project Western power, the sanctions regimes that punish states which resist — these are all expressions of the imperialist stage of capitalism that Lenin described. The crisis of South African youth is, in the final analysis, a consequence of our country’s insertion into this imperialist system.
2.2. The Systemic Crisis
The current crisis manifests across multiple dimensions. Economically, the post-2008 long depression has never truly ended; growth remains anaemic in the core capitalist economies, debt levels are unprecedented, and financial speculation continues to destabilise the real economy. Politically, the crisis of legitimacy of the capitalist order has produced both a turn to the right (fascism, populism) and the emergence of new forms of popular resistance. Ideologically, the hegemony of neoliberalism has fractured — the ‘end of history’ narrative has collapsed, and the question of socialism is once again on the global agenda. Ecologically, the climate crisis — itself a product of capitalist accumulation — threatens civilisational survival, while the imperialist powers refuse the radical action required.
For the youth of the global South, and especially of Africa, this crisis is acute. Imperialism continues to extract wealth, destabilise governments, impose debt, and wage war. The future that capitalism offers the young people of our continent is one of unemployment, precarity, migration, and conflict. This is the international context in which the YCLSA must organise.
3. THE CURRENT BALANCE OF FORCES
The global balance of forces is characterised by a deepening contestation between the imperialist offensive of the Western powers (led by US imperialism) and the emerging forces of multipolarity and anti-imperialist resistance. This contestation is the defining feature of the current conjuncture.
Figure 1: The global balance of forces — the contest between imperialist aggression and multipolar / anti-imperialist resistance.
3.1. The Imperialist Offensive
US imperialism, often in concert with its NATO allies and the European Union, continues to project military, economic and ideological power across the globe. The instruments of this offensive include: military aggression and the threat of aggression (NATO expansion, AFRICOM, the network of US military bases); coercive debt regimes (the IMF and World Bank, which impose structural adjustment and austerity on the global South); sanctions used as a weapon against states which resist (Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Russia, Zimbabwe); trade domination and unequal exchange; the power of multinational corporations; and ideological warfare — the promotion of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ as pretexts for regime change and intervention.
3.2. The Multipolar Transition
Against this offensive, a multipolar transition is underway — a historic shift away from the unipolar moment of undisputed US hegemony that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The rise of China as a major economic and political power; the resilience of Russia; the expansion of BRICS+ to include major economies of the global South; the growing cooperation among countries of the South through platforms such as the G77, the Non-Aligned Movement, and FOCAC (Forum on China-Africa Cooperation); and the de-dollarisation initiatives that challenge the dominance of the US dollar — all of these represent a fragmentation of the unipolar order and the emergence of alternatives.
This multipolar transition opens possibilities for the global South, including South Africa. It creates space for sovereign development, for South-South cooperation, and for resistance to imperialist dictation. But it must be understood soberly: multipolarity is not socialism. The BRICS+ bloc includes capitalist powers with their own interests and contradictions. The multipolar transition is a terrain of struggle, not a guaranteed path to liberation. The working class and its allies must use the openings it creates while maintaining their own independent organisation and socialist horizon.
3.3. The Forces of Resistance
Beyond the state-level dynamics of multipolarity, the forces of resistance to imperialism include the surviving and aspiring socialist states (Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Vietnam, China, the DPRK, and others); the national liberation movements that continue to struggle against occupation and colonialism (Palestine, Western Sahara); the national and democratic movements in countries under reactionary rule (Swaziland/Eswatini, where the absolute monarchy suppresses the democratic struggle); and the communist and workers’ parties, trade unions, and popular movements that organise the working class worldwide. The YCLSA is part of this global front through its membership in the WFDY and its bilateral relations with fraternal communist youth organisations.
Questions for Congress
4. WARS, CONFLICT AND IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION
The crisis of imperialism expresses itself in war. The current period is marked by multiple, intersecting conflicts — each of which reveals the character of the imperialist system and the stakes of the global struggle. For a communist youth organisation, none of these wars is ‘foreign’; each is part of the single contest between imperialism and its victims.
4.1. Palestine: The Palestinian Liberation Struggle
The struggle of the Palestinian people against Zionist occupation and colonialism is the central national liberation question of our time. The genocide being perpetrated by the Israeli state against the people of Gaza — armed, funded and politically protected by US imperialism and its allies — is a crime against humanity that demands the active solidarity of every communist and every person of conscience. The YCLSA stands unequivocally with the Palestinian people, with their right to self-determination, to return, and to liberation from the river to the sea. We support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and we call on the South African government and all institutions to isolate the apartheid Israeli state. The YCLSA must make Palestine a central campaign of its international work — through education, mobilisation, and practical solidarity.
4.2. Western Sahara: Africa’s Last Colony
The Sahrawi people of Western Sahara continue their decades-long struggle for self-determination against Moroccan occupation — a occupation enabled and protected by imperialism, particularly French imperialism. Western Sahara is Africa’s last colony, and its liberation is an obligation of the African anti-imperialist movement. The YCLSA must amplify the Sahrawi cause, support the Polisario Front, and demand that the South African government and the African Union act decisively for decolonisation.
4.3. Swaziland/Eswatini: The Democratic Struggle on Our Border
The people of Swaziland (Eswatini) continue to struggle for democracy against the last absolute monarchy in Africa — a regime that bans political parties, imprisons and kills activists, and suppresses the trade union and democratic movement. This struggle is on South Africa’s border, and the YCLSA has a direct responsibility to express solidarity with the democratic forces of Swaziland, including the Communist Party of Swaziland and the Swazi youth movement. The League must treat the Swazi democratic struggle as a priority of its Southern African solidarity work.
4.4. Cuba and Venezuela: Socialism Under Siege
The Cuban Revolution remains a beacon of socialist possibility and internationalism — a small, blockaded country that has sent doctors, teachers and fighters across the world in the spirit of proletarian internationalism. The more than six-decade US blockade of Cuba is an act of economic warfare that must be opposed unconditionally. The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, led by the United Socialist Party, continues to defend its sovereignty against relentless US-backed regime-change efforts, sanctions, and sabotage. The YCLSA must express active solidarity with both revolutions, campaign against the blockades and sanctions, and defend the right of these peoples to choose socialism.
4.5. Ukraine and the New Cold War
The war in Ukraine is a direct consequence of NATO expansion and the imperialist contestation of the post-Soviet space. While the YCLSA condemns all attacks on civilians and supports a just peace, it must understand the conflict in its geopolitical context: the US and NATO have used Ukraine as a proxy to weaken Russia, to consolidate Western control over Europe, and to justify a massive military build-up. The war has been used to discipline the global South, to escalate the New Cold War against China, and to militarise the international order. The YCLSA must oppose NATO expansion, oppose the militarisation of international relations, and support a negotiated settlement that addresses the legitimate security concerns of all parties.
4.6. Sudan, the Sahel and the African Conflagration
Africa is itself a theatre of imperialist intervention and conflict. The war in Sudan has produced one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The instability in the Sahel, the persistence of imperialist military presence (AFRICOM, French operations), the scramble for Africa’s minerals and resources, and the imposition of neoliberal economic policies — all contribute to a continent in crisis. The YCLSA must develop an African internationalism that connects the youth of South Africa to the struggles of young people across the continent, against imperialism and for African liberation and unity.
Questions for Congress
5. THE RISE OF FASCISM AND RIGHT-WING POPULISM
One of the most dangerous features of the current conjuncture is the rise of fascism and right-wing populism across the world. This is not an accident. It is a direct response to the crisis of capitalism and the failure of the neoliberal order to deliver security or dignity to working people. When the capitalist system fails, and when the left is weak or absent, the terrain is opened to the right.
5.1. The Trump Project and Its Global Minions
The Trump project in the United States represents the most dangerous expression of this rightward turn — a fusion of white nationalism, Christian fundamentalism, capitalist reaction, and authoritarianism. Its global ‘minions’ — from the European far right (Meloni, Le Pen, the AfD, Vox) to the reactionary movements of Latin America, Asia and Africa — draw inspiration, funding and ideological sustenance from the US right. These forces target migrants, women, LGBTQI+ people, trade unions, and the left. They promote xenophobia, racism, patriarchy and climate denial. They represent an existential threat to democracy, to the working class, and to the possibility of a socialist future.
5.2. The Battle of Ideas
The YCLSA must understand that the rise of the right is, in significant part, an ideological victory — the product of decades of right-wing hegemony-building (in Gramsci’s sense) through media, think tanks, social media, and the weaponisation of culture. The left has too often ceded this terrain. The YCLSA’s response must be twofold: to expose and oppose the right on every front, and to build the alternative — a class-conscious, anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, anti-imperialist youth politics that offers young people a genuine explanation of their suffering and a genuine path to change it. This is the war of position. This is the battle of ideas. It cannot be won by slogans alone; it requires the political education and ideological work addressed in the League Building and Strategic Perspective documents.
6. DEBT, TRADE AND CLIMATE INJUSTICE
6.1. The Debt Trap
Imperialism operates not only through guns but through debt. The global South remains trapped in a debt regime imposed by the IMF, the World Bank, and private financial markets — a regime that forces governments to prioritise debt service over the needs of their people, to implement austerity, to privatise public assets, and to open their economies to imperialist exploitation. South Africa’s own fiscal crisis, the austerity imposed on our public services, and the constraints on developmental spending are all, in part, consequences of this debt regime. The YCLSA must join the global call for debt cancellation and for a new, just international financial architecture.
6.2. Trade Domination and Unequal Exchange
The global trade system remains structured to the advantage of the imperialist core. Africa continues to export raw materials and import manufactured goods; to suffer terms of trade that systematically transfer value to the core; and to be denied the policy space to industrialise and develop. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) offers possibilities, but only if it is seized by a development-oriented, Pan-African state led by the working class — not by comprador elites and multinational capital. The YCLSA must advocate for a trade and industrial strategy that breaks from colonial patterns of extraction and builds sovereign, socialist-oriented development.
6.3. The Climate Crisis and Climate Injustice
The climate crisis is the product of centuries of capitalist accumulation in the imperialist core — yet its devastating consequences fall disproportionately on the global South and on the working class and the poor. Africa, which has contributed least to the crisis, faces droughts, floods, food insecurity, and displacement. The imperialist powers refuse the radical emissions reductions and the climate finance that justice demands, while using the ‘green transition’ as a new arena for the extraction of critical minerals from Africa. The YCLSA must champion climate justice — demanding that the core powers pay their climate debt, that the transition be just (not a sacrifice of workers and the poor), and that Africa’s resources be used for African development, not imperialist ‘green’ accumulation.
7. THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS: PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM
The internationalist tasks of the YCLSA must be grounded in the theoretical tradition of proletarian internationalism — the principle that the working class of all countries shares a common interest in the overthrow of capitalism, and must therefore unite across national borders. This is not a sentimental principle. It is a material necessity, rooted in the international character of capitalism itself.
7.1. Marx and Engels: Workers of the World, Unite!
“The working men have no country... National differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.” - Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)
Marx and Engels recognised that capitalism was an international system, and that the working class it created was therefore an international class. The famous call — ‘Workers of the World, Unite!’ — was not a moral appeal but a strategic conclusion: if capital is international, the struggle against it must be international too. For the YCLSA, this means that the struggle of South African youth cannot be separated from the struggle of youth in Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, Swaziland, or anywhere else. We face the same system; we must build the same struggle.
7.2. Lenin and the Communist International
Lenin carried forward and deepened this internationalism through the creation of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1919 — a worldwide alliance of communist parties dedicated to the global overthrow of capitalism. Lenin insisted that the proletariat of the oppressor nations had a special duty to support the liberation struggles of the oppressed nations. For South African communists — whose country was shaped by colonialism, racial capitalism, and imperialist extraction — this principle is foundational: solidarity with the oppressed peoples of the world is not charity but a class obligation.
7.3. The SACP’s Internationalist Tradition
The South African Communist Party has a proud internationalist tradition. From its founding in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa, through the underground, through the solidarity campaigns of the exile period, to its contemporary engagement with the global communist movement, the SACP has understood that the NDR is inseparable from the global anti-imperialist struggle. The YCLSA, as the youth wing of the Party, inherits and must carry forward this tradition. The South African Road to Socialism programme locates our struggle within the global movement for socialism and against imperialism.
7.4. Internationalism and the Vanguard Youth
For a communist youth league, proletarian internationalism has a special meaning. Young people are naturally drawn to internationalism — to solidarity with peers across the world, to the global culture of resistance, to the sense that their struggle is part of something larger. The YCLSA must channel this energy into organised, sustained, politically grounded international work. This is not a matter of symbolic gestures or occasional statements. It is a matter of building real relationships with fraternal organisations, conducting real campaigns of solidarity, and developing real political education that connects the local to the global.
8. PRIORITY SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGNS
The YCLSA must conduct sustained, organised solidarity campaigns with the peoples and youth of the world who are struggling against imperialism, occupation and reaction. These campaigns are not symbolic gestures but concrete expressions of internationalism. The figure below maps the five priority campaigns.
Figure 2: The five priority solidarity campaigns of the YCLSA.
For each campaign, the League must develop: political education (so that members understand the history and the stakes); public campaigning (statements, mobilisations, media); practical solidarity (BDS, material support, twinning); and integration into the broader programme (so that solidarity is not a separate silo but part of the League’s political life). The 12th Youth Front — for the unity and solidarity of the popular international youth — is the organisational vehicle for this work.
8.1. Campaign Standards
Each solidarity campaign must meet the following minimum standards to avoid degenerating into tokenism:
Questions for Congress
9. THE WORLD FEDERATION OF DEMOCRATIC YOUTH (WFDY)
The World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) is the principal international formation of progressive and communist youth organisations. Founded in 1945 in the aftermath of the anti-fascist victory of the Second World War, the WFDY unites youth organisations across the world in the struggle against imperialism, war, fascism and reaction, and for peace, solidarity, democracy and socialism.
9.1. The YCLSA’s Role in the WFDY
The YCLSA is a member of the WFDY, and the National Secretary of the YCLSA serves on the WFDY General Council — the main governing body of the Federation between its General Assemblies. This is a position of responsibility and influence. The YCLSA must use its WFDY position to build solidarity, to coordinate campaigns, to strengthen the Federation, and to advance the anti-imperialist youth agenda globally. The League must prepare thoroughly for WFDY General Assemblies and Council meetings, develop clear positions, and build the bilateral and multilateral relationships that make its participation effective.
9.2. Strengthening the WFDY
The WFDY faces challenges — uneven membership, resource constraints, and the need to renew its relevance to a new generation of young people. The YCLSA must contribute to strengthening the Federation: by paying dues and meeting its obligations; by mobilising for WFDY campaigns (such as the World Festival of Youth and Students); by hosting or supporting regional activities; and by helping to build a more coordinated, more active, more politically sharp WFDY. The National Secretary’s presence on the General Council must be used not as a status but as a tool of the global anti-imperialist youth movement.
10. THE PROGRESSIVE YOUTH INTERNATIONAL FRONT
The strategic task of building a Progressive Youth International Front flows directly from the League’s commitment to proletarian internationalism and from the strategic tasks list adopted by the National Secretariat. The Front is a proposal to build a coordinated global youth force against imperialism and for socialism.
10.1. Why a Front?
The WFDY is an important formation, but the global anti-imperialist youth movement is broader and more fragmented than any single federation. Communist and progressive youth organisations exist in many countries, but their coordination is often weak, episodic, or limited to occasional events. A Progressive Youth International Front would seek to draw together the communist youth organisations, the national liberation youth movements, the anti-imperialist student formations, and the progressive young workers’ structures into a more coherent, more coordinated, more effective global force.
10.2. What the Front Would Do
10.3. Building the Front
The Progressive Youth International Front cannot be built overnight or by decree. It must be built patiently, through bilateral relationships, through the WFDY, through joint campaigns, and through the gradual construction of trust, common analysis and shared practice. The YCLSA’s contribution is to initiate the conversations, to host or co-host the initial consultations, and to use its WFDY position to advance the project. Congress should mandate the incoming leadership to make the building of the Front a priority of the international work.
11. THE YCLSA’S INTERNATIONALIST TASKS
The internationalist tasks of the YCLSA for the new term flow from the analysis above and from the strategic tasks list. They are integrated with, not separate from, the League’s domestic work.
11.1. The Tasks
11.2. The Constitutional Mandate
These tasks fall within the constitutional mandate of the 2nd Deputy National Secretary, whose role includes a focus on campaigns and international work. The incoming 2nd Deputy National Secretary must be seized with this portfolio, supported by the National Committee and the Political Commission. International work must not be treated as an optional add-on or a prestige function; it is a constitutional responsibility and a strategic necessity.
12. PROGRAMME OF ACTION (INTERNATIONAL)
12.1. Year 1 Priorities (2026-2027)
| Ref | Task | Responsible | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| INT 1.1 | Adopt a YCLSA international solidarity plan covering the 5 priority campaigns | 2nd DNS / International desk | First NC 2026 |
| INT 1.2 | Palestine solidarity campaign intensified (BDS, education, mobilisation) | 2nd DNS / Provinces | Ongoing |
| INT 1.3 | Prepare for and participate in the next WFDY General Council/Assembly | NS / 2nd DNS | Per WFDY calendar |
| INT 1.4 | Initiate Progressive Youth International Front consultations (bilateral meetings) | NS / 2nd DNS | By Q2 2027 |
| INT 1.5 | Anti-imperialist curriculum developed for the political schools | Political Education desk | By end 2026 |
| INT 1.6 | Operationalise the 12th Youth Front | NC / Commissions | Throughout 2026-27 |
| INT 1.7 | Bilateral relations strengthened with at least 3 fraternal organisations | 2nd DNS | By Q4 2026 |
12.2. Medium-Term (2027-2029)
12.3. Long-Term (2029-2030)
13. RISK ANALYSIS
| Risk | Likelihood | Impact | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|---|
| International work treated as symbolic/episodic, not sustained | High | Medium | Campaign standards (Sec 8); integrate into branch POAs; reporting |
| WFDY engagement weak due to lack of preparation/resources | Medium | Medium | Prepare thoroughly; pay dues; build bilateral support |
| Progressive Youth International Front stalls | High | Medium | Build patiently through bilateral relations; use WFDY; set realistic milestones |
| Solidarity campaigns degenerate into tokenism | Medium | Medium | Educated + practical standards; link to domestic work |
| Anti-imperialist education lacks depth in political schools | Medium | High | Develop curriculum; train facilitators; use classical texts |
| League takes positions without sober analysis (ultraleftism) | Medium | Medium | Apply Lenin’s method of sober assessment; debate positions collectively |
| International work isolated from domestic programme | Medium | High | Integrate into the 12 Youth Fronts; link solidarity to local conjuncture |
14. DRAFT RESOLUTIONS TO CONGRESS
RESOLUTION 1: ON INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
This Congress notes that:
This Congress therefore resolves to:
RESOLUTION 2: ON THE WFDY
This Congress therefore resolves to:
RESOLUTION 3: ON THE PROGRESSIVE YOUTH INTERNATIONAL FRONT
This Congress therefore resolves to:
RESOLUTION 4: ON ANTI-IMPERIALIST EDUCATION
This Congress therefore resolves to:
RESOLUTION 5: ON PALESTINE
This Congress notes the genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people and therefore resolves to:
15. ALIGNMENT TO THE CONGRESS THEME
| International Task | Rescuing the NDR | Advancing Towards People’s Power |
|---|---|---|
| Solidarity campaigns | Connects the NDR to global anti-imperialism | Builds people’s power across borders |
| WFDY engagement | Strengthens the global front of which the NDR is part | Advances coordinated internationalist power |
| Progressive Youth International Front | Builds the unity imperialism seeks to divide | Constructs a global youth force for socialism |
| Anti-imperialist education | Explains the NDR’s crisis in global terms | Forms internationalist cadres for people’s power |
| Combatting fascism/Zionism | Defends the NDR from right-wing capture | Advances a class-conscious, anti-racist people’s power |
16. MONITORING AND EVALUATION
The 2nd Deputy National Secretary, whose constitutional mandate covers international work, reports to the National Committee and Political Commission on the implementation of the international programme.
17. CONCLUSION
The struggle of the working-class youth of South Africa is not a local struggle. It is part of a single, global struggle against imperialism — a system that extracts our wealth, destabilises our continent, imposes debt on our government, wages war on our peers across the world, and offers our generation nothing but unemployment, precarity and despair. To rescue the NDR and advance towards people’s power, the YCLSA must be an internationalist organisation — rooted in South Africa, but connected to, and in solidarity with, the oppressed peoples and youth of the world.
The international balance of forces is contested. Imperialism is in crisis, but it remains dangerous — militarised, reactionary, and willing to use genocide to maintain its domination. The multipolar transition opens possibilities, and the forces of resistance — from Cuba to Palestine, from Venezuela to Western Sahara — continue to struggle. The YCLSA’s task is to take its place in this global front: through sustained solidarity, through the WFDY, through the building of a Progressive Youth International Front, and through the political education that connects every young communist of South Africa to the worldwide struggle for socialism.
As Marx and Engels declared: the working class has no country. The youth of the working class have no country. Our struggle is one. Our enemy is one. Our future is one — socialism.
Forward to the 7th National Congress! Youth to the Front: Rescue the NDR, Advance Towards People’s Power! Workers and oppressed peoples of the world, unite! Socialism is our lifetime! Amandla!
Comradely Always,
Cde Siphelele Gavu 2nd Deputy National Secretary (Campaigns & International Work) Young Communist League of South Africa (Ufasimba) Ref: YCLSA/PR/7NC/DISC-004 | Draft v1.0 | 7 July 2026
ANNEXURE A: KEY INTERNATIONAL DATES AND SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGNS
The following are key international dates and solidarity moments that the YCLSA should observe and mobilise around. [Some dates are approximate and should be confirmed annually.]
| Date / Period | Occasion | YCLSA Action |
|---|---|---|
| 29 November | International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People | Palestine solidarity actions; BDS mobilisation |
| Ongoing | Palestine genocide / occupation | Sustained campaign; BDS; education |
| Annually | Cuba solidarity / against the US blockade | Campaign; education; support for Cuba |
| Annually | Western Sahara / Sahrawi self-determination | Solidarity; support for Polisario Front |
| Annually | Swaziland democratic struggle | Solidarity with democratic & communist forces |
| Annually | Venezuela / against US regime change | Defence of the Bolivarian Revolution |
| 9 May | Anti-Fascist Victory Day | Commemoration; anti-fascist education |
| 1 May | International Workers’ Day | Joint action with the labour movement |
| October | Black Consciousness / Africa anti-imperialism | African internationalism; education |
| Per WFDY calendar | WFDY General Council/Assembly; World Festival of Youth & Students | Active participation; preparation |
ANNEXURE B: CONSTITUTIONAL AND THEORETICAL EXTRACTS
On the 2nd Deputy National Secretary (Constitutional Mandate)
“The 2nd Deputy National Secretary shall assist the National Secretary, deputise for the National Secretary on all functions and carry out such other functions as shall be entrusted... Shall mainly focus on Campaigns and International Work of the organisation.” (YCLSA Constitution, 5th National Congress, §7.3.1(e))
On Internationalism (Marx and Engels)
“The working men have no country... In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.” (Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848)
On Imperialism (Lenin)
“Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance... in which the division of all territories of the globe has been completed.” (Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, 1916)
On the Oppressed Nations (Lenin)
“The proletariat of the oppressor nations must demand the right of secession and freedom for the nations oppressed by ‘its’ nation. Otherwise internationalism remains an empty phrase.” (Lenin)
REFERENCES
1. YCLSA Constitution and Code of Conduct, as amended at the 5th National Congress, Alice, 2018.
2. Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1848). Manifesto of the Communist Party.
3. Lenin, V.I. (1916). Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
4. Lenin, V.I. (1920). ‘Left-Wing’ Communism: An Infantile Disorder.
5. Lenin, V.I. (1917). The State and Revolution.
6. Gramsci, A. Prison Notebooks (selections on hegemony).
7. SACP. The South African Road to Socialism (Programme).
8. SACP. Path to Power (1989).
9. WFDY Constitution and materials.
10. YCLSA Strategic Tasks List (National Secretariat, 2026).
11. YCLSA Discussion Documents: Strategic Perspective (Doc 1) and League Building (Doc 3), 7th NC.
12. Statistics South Africa (2026). South Africa’s Youth and the Labour Market in Q1:2026.