Letter of condolence from South African comrades

On behalf of the Marxist Workers School of South Africa and on behalf of all Marxist-Leninist and revolutionary working-class fighters of our country, we send our deepest condolences to Iris Cremer, wife and lifelong comrade of Comrade Godfrey, to the Chairman of the CPGB-ML Comrade Harpal Brar and the General Secretary Zane Carpenter, to the Central Committee and all friends and comrades of the CPGB-ML.

When I had the honour to address your party meetings in February of this year I met Comrade Godfrey for the first time. From the first moment, we talked as if we had known each other for years. He was concerned about my well-being and my accommodation. We discussed the political situation of the working-class struggle in Britain. He wanted to know about the working and living conditions of the working class in South Africa. We discussed the gains of the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe and the Nato-led counter-revolution in Libya; we discussed the imperialist aggression against Syria and the national-liberation struggle in Iraq. Although already suffering from his illness, he put his party work first. Though I only spent a few days with him, one could always feel the unwavering commitment of a sincere, dedicated and disciplined comrade, a true Leninist and internationalist.

I will never forget the moment when Comrade Godfrey, immediately after my speech at Saklatvala Hall in Southall/London, stood up and recited a poem, Pamberi Ne Chimurenga, which he had written during the struggle of our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe against Ian Smith settler colonialism and British imperialism and in support of the armed struggle of ZANLA. Comrade Godfrey, clearly weakened by his illness, recited this poem with such passion and energy – there was not one person in the hall who had the slightest doubt about the commitment of this internationalist and revolutionary, his love for the downtrodden and exploited and his hatred for colonialism and imperialism.

Needless to say that when the poem ended with the words:

ZANU, steer true the course of Chimurenga,

Hold fast the helm,

Hold firm the line that leads to victory!

By People’s War Zimbabwe shall be free!

and Comrade Godfrey saluted with his first raised, the entire hall erupted in cheers and jubilation. Indeed a fighter he was and an inspiration to all!

Comrade Godfrey embodies the essence of our common struggle – the unity of the struggle of the modern proletariat and the struggle of the oppressed of the world. His whole life he has upheld the principle that the working class of the imperialist countries must unite and be one with the oppressed and exploited in the so-called ‘third world’; that the workers’ struggle must support and call for the victory of the anti-imperialist forces around the world in a common struggle to defeat imperialism.

The British proletariat has lost one of its finest; the South African proletariat has lost a friend.

May his life be an example to the young generation of your party, may his commitment and dedication in his life-long struggle against colonialism and imperialism be an example and an inspiration to the anti-war movement and other progressive movements in Britain, and may his loyalty to Marxism Leninism be an example to the proletarian struggle in your country for the overthrow of the capitalist system of exploitation and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

We dip our revolutionary banner in honour

of your fallen Comrade Godfrey Cremer!

Let the living close the eyes of the dead,

let the dead open the eyes of the living!

Obituary: Godfrey Andries Cremer

Poem for Godfrey

Poem: Comrade Bhagat Singh and Comrade Udham Singh (video)

Poem: Comrade Bhagat Singh and Comrade Udham Singh

Darwin, Marx and Materialism (video)

Libya, Syria and the Middle East (video)

Terrorism or internationalism? (video)

Godfrey recites a poem at the October Revolution rally 2009 (photo)